Setting Them Straight
by Gummy
Summary: (be warned... I suck at summaries...) What happens when Kitty (my new OC) finds her way through the well and makes it her duty to solve the issues that Inuyasha and co. have? (IK, MS)
1. Chapter 1

Wo0t! Okay, first off, this story will be having two new characters in it… one of them is mine, and her name is Kitty. The other is Shio, and he belongs to Scorpiogal (who is an awesome writer, btw.) He is her slave OC. Kitty is mine. Shio is Scorpiogal's, Kitty is Gummy's. Mine. And Shio is hers. You want to use them, you ask permission. 

…

…

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…Any questions?

Haha, okay, well now that that's out of the way… I just had to drill it into your heads so that you won't take our characters without asking. 

Oh oh I almost forgot, this takes place after Kagome has been going to the feudal era for three years, so she's 18 in this story.

Now read!

~*~

            "I just can't believe him! After everything that happened, Inuyasha _still went and tried to pick a fight with Kouga! He's such a jealous idiot! Kouga didn't even mention anything about me being his woman this time, and he still blew up! What is it with him?!" Kagome ranted to her mother. _

            'They really need to go to couples counseling…' Kagome's mother thought to herself. Kagome had come home yet again to get away from Inuyasha for being a jerk, and now it was just getting old. Sometimes if she waited it out, she would eventually be able to distract Kagome from her murderous thoughts on the hanyou by asking how Shippo, Sango and Miroku were. And speaking of the rest of them… it's a wonder that Kagome hasn't gone insane yet! What with Shippo and Inuyasha always fighting, then with Miroku always groping and Sango always screaming 'HENTAI!' anyone else probably would have lost it by now.

            Either they're such good friends that Kagome just puts up with it, or they all need help.

~*~

            Later, during dinner (oden), Mrs. Higurashi was telling Kagome, Souta and their grandfather about an upcoming family reunion. One of her sisters had called earlier that day, and she had waited until dinner to bring up the subject, when they would all hear about it.

            "It's going to be next Sunday, and I offered to host it here at the Shrine," Mrs. H. explained. They all groaned. Come on, who actually wants their entire family to be gathered at their own house for a day? Might as well have a banner made that says 'loony convention'.

            "Oh, it won't be so bad," she in an attempt to avoid getting them into bad moods.

            "Well maybe not for all of you; you'll have plenty of people your own ages to talk to, but I'll be the only 18-year old person there!" Kagome whined.

            "Now that's not true. I heard that your aunt Hitomi and uncle Saburo over in the states have an American foster child, and she's your age! Her name is Kitty, and she'll be flying over with them."

            "Well that's great, mom, but she's American— how am I supposed have a good time with her when neither of us will be able to understand the other?"

            "Calm down, she speaks Japanese, too. I'm sure you two will get along just fine."

            Satisfied that Kagome now looked less annoyed about it, Mrs. H. dropped the topic for the rest of dinner.

~*~

            After much arguing, shouting, bickering, yelling, sitting, some grumbling and more shouting, Kagome finally convinced Inuyasha to let her stay home for the next week plus Sunday. But the thing was, she had to meet him half-way— which meant that she had to bring him plenty of ramen, and she would have to return right after the reunion was over without doing anything else. 

            But at least her grandfather wouldn't have to tell her classmates that she had a temporary case of AIDS for that week…

~*~

            Kagome sighed for what had to have been the hundredth time. She hadn't gotten Inuyasha's ramen yet, and since mostly every guest that was expected had already arrived, she wouldn't be able to go out and get it before she had to return to the feudal era. 

            So far, she still hadn't seen Kitty, the American girl who was supposed to be there. She had seen her aunt Hitomi and she said that uncle Saburo was driving with Kitty in a truck they had rented, and must have gotten caught in traffic. So it would only be a matter of time until they arrived and Kagome would have a chance of getting her mind off of her ramen situation.

            Speaking of time, she really wished that she had some before the reunion to get Inuyasha's ramen. He wouldn't be too happy that she didn't hold up her end of the bargain… Kagome sighed yet again.

            "Hey, are you Kagome?" A voice asked her.

            When Kagome turned around to find who was talking to her, she came face-to-face with whom she assumed to be Kitty. After all, she _was _American, and _did _look to be around Kagome's age. 

            The girl in front of her had black hair about the same length as her own, and the ends were dyed bright pink (I'd love to have hair like that… hehe). Even her bangs that framed her face were dyed on the ends. 

            But besides her hair, Kagome noticed her clothes. She was wearing a black t-shirt with pink sleeves, and her jeans were black with pink stitching. They weren't odd clothes, and Kitty pulled off the colors better than she thought anyone else could, but Kagome, for some reason, thought that a kimono of some sort would suit her better… but not even she knew where that thought had come from.

            Lastly were her eyes. They were such an intense yellow-green color that it looked almost unnatural.

            "I'm Kitty," she said with a smile when Kagome didn't answer her, and extended her hand.

            Kagome looked at her outstretched hand and snapped out of her daze and answered in a friendly voice, "Yeah, I'm Kagome. Nice to meet you." 

            "You too," Kitty said. "Hey, is something wrong? While I was making my way over here I noticed that you kinda looked bummed about something," she observed.

            "Oh, it's nothing," Kagome assured with a smile. "Nothing that I won't get over, at least."

            "Oh, come on," Kitty said with a sympathetic look. "I don't mean to pry, but maybe I can help f you tell me."

            Kagome was already starting to like Kitty since she was trying to help her with Inuyasha, even if she didn't yet realize what she might be getting herself into. She decided to see if Kitty really could help, and told her about her pickle over her lack of the ramen that Inuyasha demanded.

            When she finished, Kitty looked at her with slight amusement. "Is that all? That has to be the easiest thing to solve that I've encountered in a long time."

            "What do you mean?" Kagome asked.

            Kitty smiled at her and explained. "Well, your aunt and uncle and I rented a motor home and we're going to stay in it in this area for about a month… but knowing them, they could stretch it to five months… just so they can visit the rest of your family. So of course, we have a LOT of food out in the truck we rented all stocked up in there. I'm positive that we have at least four crates full of ramen, and you're welcome to take as much as you think Inuyasha will want."

            Kagome was looking at Kitty with gratitude for the offer and shock that she had so much ramen evident on her face. "Are you sure you wouldn't mind losing some of it?" she asked in disbelief.

            "Oh it's no problem at all," Kitty replied, proud that she had already managed to fix something in a person's life for the day. "I'm just happy to help."

~*~

            Kagome spent the rest of the reunion with Kitty (no surprise there) and got the feeling that she was just one of those people who got along with everyone. Or at least she tolerated everyone.

            At one point during the reunion, Souta and some cousins his age were having a Twisted Metal 4 (which the authoress does not own) tournament, and Kitty had somehow gotten Kagome and herself into playing it. Kagome had never really found video games to be very fun, but that was probably because the only person she had played with was Souta. 

            Kitty somehow even got on grandfather's good side by listening to the history of this and that, and even asking questions (gasp)! How she managed that, Kagome would never know.

            The reunion lasted for most of the day, and after helping Kagome's mother make some more onion dip for the chips, Kagome and Kitty went up to Kagome's room for a while. 

            Much of the time they spent talking included Kagome asking questions about America, and Kitty happily telling her about it. But while Kitty was talking about how she thought it was weird for people in the south to have redneck accents (which she talked about with a redneck accent, just for giggles), she spotted the shikon shards in a small glass jar on Kagome's night stand.

            Switching to pirate slang, she asked, "Aye, Kagome, what be these scraps of booty 'ere?"

            Kagome didn't really know how to answer that, so she stretched the truth a little. "Uh… they're from a necklace I used to have. The pendant on it was made of glass and it broke."

            Kitty inspected the shikon chards for a bit more, then said, "Shiver me timbers, that reminds me of one of the tales yer gran'daddy told me about a shikon jewel. Said it was shattered 500 years ago, he did. T'was very interesting." She continued to talk about the previous subject, but continued to look at the shikon jewel shards in the jar.

            'Oh great. It's nice that he has somebody to listen to him, but I just hope he doesn't tell anybody any more about the shikon jewel,' Kagome thought. 

            Suddenly, Kagome's mother came into the room. "Kitty dear, I've offered for aunt Hitomi and uncle Saburo to park your motor home here at the shrine, in case you were wondering why you haven't had to leave yet."

            "Huh?"

            "You didn't know? The reunion was over two hours ago. It's eleven right now," Mrs. H. said.

            "Oh, okay," Kitty said with a smile. Mrs. H, left the room, and then Kagome suddenly panicked. 

            Outside of her window was a very ticked off hanyou, and she still didn't have the ramen from Kitty yet.

            Just as he was about to open her window, Kagome yelled 'sit' at the top of her lungs. 

            Kitty looked at her in confusion and then out the window when a string of cuss words was heard. "What?" 'I missed something…'

            Kagome put on a smile and laughed nervously. "Aha… I just remembered that I have to go see Inuyasha! So, um, it was nice meeting you! Bye!" Then Kagome high-tailed it out of there and made her way downstairs, as much as she hated to rush out on Kitty like that. 

            "Er… bye?" Kitty said weakly. She then shrugged and walked out of Kagome's room, still obliviously holding onto the shikon shards.

~*~

            Kitty had gone to the truck to retrieve some ramen for Kagome, deciding that half of what they had would be enough. She then went over to the motor home and, leaving the boxes outside of it near the door, walked inside where she found her foster parents. 

            "Oh there you are, Kitty. Saburo and I were just going to get some sleep, but I supposed you'll be out as usual?" Hitomi asked.

            "Yeah, I'll try to stay close by though. Oh and that reminds me, I need some more 'ingredients'. I only have enough right now to last me another day, maybe less."

            "Okay dear, I'll make a run to the pharmacy tomorrow morning."

            Kitty smiled at her in thanks, and bid her and Saburo goodnight before leaving the motor home. 

~*~*~*~*~*~

*gasp!* What's Kitty up to during the night? Will Kagome survive Inuyasha's wrath?? What sort of 'ingredients' does Kitty need?! Oh the suspense, oh the angst! 

-_-

Whatever. No need to get your panties in a knot, I'm either in the process of writing the next chappie as you read this, or it's already up. See you soon ^_^


	2. Chapter 2

Right, so I'm sitting in the basement, typing this up on Tomato (yeah, that's what I names the older computer), while my sister gets laugh her arse off at this thing called "Big Buttocks", which is a playoff of "Big Brother" that someone wrote using the cast of Inuyasha. It's quite amusing, really. Search on google if you really want to see it, or you can ask me for the link by e-mail.

Wait; there was a point to mentioning Tomato… oh yeah! Okay, so now that my brother got it up and running, I now have 2 computers at my disposal for typing up updates on. So maybe they'll come a bit faster now that even if my sister DOES boot me off the better comp, I still have Tomato ^_^ 

Well anyway, I'm thinking that Shio will either come in the next chapter, or the one after. It all depends. For now though, enjoy chapter 2!

~*~

            No, carrying around two giant boxes of ramen in the middle of the night is not normal. And no, hunting down Kagome isn't exactly staying close. But what's a bored little kitty to do?

            Yeah, I mean kitty as in cat.

            A long time ago, before Kitty's parents had lost interest in raising her like it was just some temporary hobby, her father had shown her ways to conceal her youkai attributes to make her look completely human. There were different ways to do it, but Kitty preferred to use the potion method… one that eventually wears off late at night.

            So now, Kitty was sniffing around the shrine with her nose in the air, two boxes of ramen stacked in her arms that she couldn't quite see over the top of, and all the while she as perfectly okay with the fact that she now had a black cat tail, black cat ears on top of her head, longer nails that came to sharp points, sharp fangs, and a few black stripes here and there on her face and body.

            Her ears weren't really normal though… when youkai take on the shape of a human, they normally have human-looking ears, with the exception that they were pointed. Maybe her parents thought that since she couldn't even take on a human form properly, then she was weak…? Well, that could have been her mother's reason, at least.

            But enough about that, Kitty just found Kagome's scent! 'But what's this smell of dog that's here, too? *gasp* It's a dog youkai! Well… more like dog hanyou. There's a relief.' Fortunately for Kitty, Inuyasha's demon blood wouldn't be significant enough to make him chase her around like a puppy ^^ 'But... wait… dog demon? And Kagome said that the ramen was for an 'Inu'-'Yasha'? *giggle* I thought that was just a nickname! Well if this is Inuyasha's scent, then at least I'll know who he is when I see him now.'

            So kitty followed Kagome and Inuyasha's scent trails through the shrine and into the well house. Upon entering, Kitty gazed warily at the well, where she could smell Kagome and Inuyasha had gone into.

            She approached the well and looked down, expecting to see the two of them possibly unconscious at the bottom from falling down there somehow. But what she saw was nothing more than the darkness that lingered where the plummeting drop ended. And strangely enough, that was where their scent trails ended as well.

            'Maybe there's a tunnel in the side of the well at the bottom that leads to the sewers that travel below some night club that they went off to…?' Kitty had a very active imagination, as evidence from this pretty much completely illogical assumption.

            However, she was determined to see if it was correct. So, not bothering to set down the ramen, she jumped right on into the well.

~*~

            'Whoo, that was FUN! Pretty different though… I wonder how long that portal has been there? But oh man, that was a blast! I'm gonna have to try that again some time. But I can smell Kagome again now, so I'd better keep going,' Kitty reasoned.

            After jumping, she had braced herself for landing at the bottom when instead, she was engulfed in blue light and transported to… heck, how should she know? All that she observed is that it was fun. Which means that she didn't notice much of anything else, IE, the fact that the jar of shikon shards in her pocket glowed when she went through the well.

            She jumped out of the well and wasn't surprised to see that the area around it wasn't the shrine anymore, but she was only expecting it because what was happening seemed to be parallel to the story that Kagome's grandfather told her about the shikon jewel and the people who were after it 500 years ago.

            Kitty walked down a dirt path that Kagome's scent went over, and soon saw a hut that was only slightly isolated from a village. She could smell Kagome inside the hut, but took some time to think about what to do next before she went to knock on the door.

            'I am definitely going to have to ask Mrs. H. about this in the morning… but first I gotta explore!' Kitty thought as she set down the ramen behind a bush and took off towards the village. She decided that she shouldn't go near the hit, since Kagome would probably be asleep, and she could smell Inuyasha hanging around the hut outside somewhere.

~*~

            'They dress in kimonos like people did centuries ago… this village seems centuries old… their technology seems centuries behind… hmm…,' Kitty thought to herself as she stepped away from a window she was looking through to see the inside of one of the houses in the village.

            She glanced at her watch.

            'Only 2:00 in the morning? Well I've seen everything here, so I guess I'll try to find my way home… and come back with the ramen in the morning… but compared to this, whatever I do to pass the rest of the time will be boring…'

~*~

            After retrieving the ramen, Kitty decided that the only logical thing for her to do would be to see if jumping down the well again brought her back, since it was doing that which brought her there in the first place.

            That theory proved to be successful, and once she was back at the shrine she put the ramen down outside of the motor home once again. Only after that did she realize that she had nothing else to do, so she meditated for the sake of keeping herself occupied and in hopes of another idea coming to her.

            But anyone who happened to see her wouldn't be able to tell that she was meditating. Her current position was on top of the motor home and she was on her back with her feet resting on a tree branch that hung low over the top of the vehicle. Not altogether bizarre, but certainly not a normal way to meditate.

            "Oooommmeee… ooommmeee…," Kitty chanted. Then her mind slipped out of reality and she began to recite what was playing over and over again in the dark corners of her mind that not even she dared to venture into.

            "Who likes short shorts…? I like short shorts… only at Mattress Giant…"

            Apparently, whoever is in charge of letting people achieve enlightenment doesn't like short shorts, mattresses, or the fact that Kitty does this every time she meditates and without fail, because otherwise an acorn wouldn't have fallen onto her right eye and knock her out of her trance the way it so knavishly did.

            However, this had the desired effect of giving her an idea to entertain herself, so she jumped off of the motor home and entered it to retrieve some supplies.

            When she emerged she was carrying a stack of various black fabrics, some white fabric, a bottle of pink dye, and in her mouth she had a few pins and needles with a spool of black thread balanced precariously on one of the pin heads.

            'I'm probably going to go back through the portal, so why not dress like the people there? And if I don't go back, then I can always use my new kimono as pajamas ^_^'

~*~

            "Good morning Hitomi," Kitty said cheerfully to her foster mother.

            "Good morning," she replied with a smile. "Were you out all night?"

            "Yeah, I was meditating and then I got the idea to make this kimono… and I've been working on it since then. See?" she said, standing up from where she was finishing the kimono and holding it out for Hitomi to take a look.

            It was mostly black with the exception of random white demented circles here and there on it, and she sleeves were frayed largely at the edges and the frays were died pink. The same was done with the bottom of the kimono.

            Also, draped over Kitty's shoulders, was a white sash for securing the kimono. It had the same demented circles, only in black, and the ends were dyed pink, though they were not frayed. On the ground next to Kitty was a plain white kimono to go underneath.

            "You never cease to amaze me, Kitty," Hitomi admitted. "If I ever tried making something like that in one night, it wouldn't even come out half as good."

            Kitty beamed with pride and began to fold her new kimono.

            "Well I was just going to go get your things. Is there anything else you want me to pick up? I'm going to do groceries while I'm out."

            Kitty thought about that for a moment. "Could you get some more… Lucky Charms?" she asked hopefully.

            Hitomi laughed as she opened the door to the truck and nodded, saying, "Sure thing. Oh, before I leave, I should tell you: Saburo wants to buy some land over here along with the motor home and use it as a sort of summer home for later on."

            "Really?"

            "Yes, but besides that, he also needs it because last night his boss called his cell phone and said that Sony needs him to be over here while they work on a new project."

            "So we're going to live here until then?" Kitty asked, not knowing if she thought that was a good or bad thing.

            "Well we could do that and stay here with him, or if you want, I could go back to America with you. I'm going to let you decide, since it won't affect me either way."

            Kitty looked pensive before saying, "I'll have to think about that. I'll tell you want I want when you get back. I don't think it will take me too long to decide."

            "Okay sweety. I'll be back in about two hours," she said before climbing into the truck and driving off. Mothers and groceries… what is it that makes them take so long?

~*~

            One hour later, Kitty was lying down in the bed area that hangs over the front seat of the motor home (you know, there's a ladder to get up there any everything?), thinking about what she wanted to do.

            It wouldn't really do anything for her to go back to America, since being home-schooled got all of a year and a half while with Hitomi and Saburo didn't give her many chanced to make good friends.

            But if she were to stay in Tokyo, she would have Kagome, if the land they were going to buy would be close enough.

            'Plus, I like it better here. It's different from America and definitely more interesting.'

            After a few more minutes of weighing her options, Kitty made her decision.

            'I guess I'm staying here.'

            She looked at her watch, and felt the urge to press the button to make up for lost times during the night when she couldn't (for fear that she'd wake somebody up).

            "Ding! It's nine seventeen a.m." it chimed.

            Kitty let out an amused giggle; besides the crowing rooster alarm it had, the voice that told her the time was her favorite feature ^_^.

            So… what to do? Hitomi still had another hour of shopping to go, Saburo was still asleep, she hadn't seen Kagome anywhere around (and she was probably missing school, wherever she was in that portal), Souta was at school by now, and she was bored. Meditating was out of the question, since she had an ominous feeling that another acorn would decide to get fresh with her, and she wasn't feeling very crafty anymore, having spent all of her creativity on that kimono last night.

            She would go visit Mrs. Higurashi and ask her about the portal, but she was hesitant because she still didn't have what she needed for her daily potion.

            'But I really want to know about that portal! She probably knows about it... that isn't something I think Kagome could hide, especially if she's missing school because of it... and if she knows about the portal, then she might know Inuyasha... and so maybe she knows that he's a demon... but if she doesn't, then she doesn't know that demons exist... if she were to find out though, it wouldn't seem so strange compared to the portal in her well! So, if I go over there and she sees that I'm a demon, I'll be okay! Here I go!'

            So Kitty, with her new-found confidence and determination from her little pep-talk, got up and marched herself over to Kagome's house.

~*~

            "Would you like some more tea, Kitty?" Mrs. H. offered cheerfully.

            "Yes, please," Kitty responded with a grateful smile.

            When Mrs. H. first saw Kitty, the reaction wasn't exactly like she had expected.

            Once Mrs. H. opened the door carrying her basket of laundry and saw Kitty, the laundry was promptly dropped onto the floor and forgotten. Any fear Kitty had that Mrs. H. might be afraid of her was suddenly non-existent when she reached out to rub her ears. After a squeal of delight, a few repetitions of 'they're even softer than Inuyasha's!', and an examination of Kitty's tail, Mrs. H. didn't hesitate to invite her in for some tea.

            After she was seated, Kitty told Mrs. H. that she was there with questions about the well. Since Kitty had found out about the well and had even gone into the past through it, Mrs. H. concluded that it wouldn't do any harm to explain the entire ordeal to Kitty. She told her about the shikon jewel, how Kagome met Inuyasha, all the members of the shard-hunting party, and she even gave Kitty a full bio on some people who didn't regularly travel with Kagome, such as Kouga and Sesshoumaru.

            And Kitty, with thanks to that imagination of hers, had no trouble believing the idea, which, compared to whatever she had cooked up in her mind to explain the well, was completely ordinary.

            "So how long has Kagome been traveling to the past?"

            "Well it's September… so I'd say just a little more than three years."

            "Oh wow… has anyone else ever gone through the well with her besides Inuyasha?"

            "No, they assumed that nobody else could… how did you get through it?"

            "I'm not really sure… what do you think Kagome would do if I went back there? She asked, getting excited over the fact that she might be able to get through again.

            Mrs. H. smiled at her with a glint of mischief in her eyes. "Only one way to find out."

~*~

So that's it for chapter 2.  
I don't own Matress Giant, Lucky Charms, or Sony.  
I don't own Inuyaha either, which I forgot to mention in the first chapter after all that ranting about what I DO own (Kitty).  
Now I just want to say something about Kitty... let's just say she's... breezy. I don't even know why I went into detail with her meditation or her crowing watch like that... maybe I thought it was funny at the time. By the way, when I said that she chants weird stuff like that, I didn't mean that it was always short shorts and what not... I meant that it was always stuff from commercial advertisements... for example, she might one day decide to chant about the Toyota song or that Jumbone dog bone commercial.  
I don't own Toyota or Jumbone.  
 But back to Kitty: I know that it seems to be centered around her for now, but that will change for the rest of the story. I just needed to do this for a few chapters so that people can see right off what kind of personality she has.  
And about Mrs. H...  
I tried, I really did, but I couldn't resist the urge to make her a ditsy lady who's eager to have puppy-eared grandchildren. She really isn't like that in the show, but when people write about her that way it's just so much more amusing...  
Over and out.


	3. Chapter 3

Ugh... this chapter was hell to write.

It's not that I don't want to make this story long, because I do! It's just that it's one of those chapters where I don't really know what I'm doing, and thus, I wish I could just skip the whole thing all together and move on to the more amusing parts.

So I guess it's only fare to warn you that because of everything that I said above, this chapter may not be all that good. Just so you know. And on that note, I would like to also say that I didn't even bother to proof-read this chapter. That's how much I hate it… but I don't particularly like most of my work, so you may like it just fine. But know that this is the reason why you may find some errors.

So yeah... anyway...

If anyone wants a picture of Kitty, leave your e-mail address in a review and I'll send it to you.

And one more thing: Shio will be coming into the story in the next chapter, and without fail. So you have something to look forward to ^_^

Now read!

~*~

            When Hitomi walked into the motor home after returning from the grocery store, she came in to find Kitty making a spectacle of herself... again.

            She was sitting at the table while typing on Saburo's laptop computer, eating cereal, talking on the phone, tying her sash on to secure her kimono (which she had probably changed into without leaving the computer), and she had a set of earphones hooked onto the ear that wasn't occupied by the phone.

            When Kitty heard Hitomi enter, she looked up, smiled broadly and dropped everything she was doing. She then stood up and handed Hitomi the phone, saying, "It's Mrs. H. She'll tell you where I'm going. Bye!" And then she rushed out the door.

            Seconds later, before Hitomi even put the phone to her ear, Kitty poked her head back in and quickly said, "Oh by the way, I decided I want to stay here." Then she closed the door again, leaving Hitomi, the the phone, and a mess where Kitty had missed her target while shoveling Rice Crispies into her mouth.

            Shaking her head, she brought the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

~*~

            Inuyasha was sulking at the side of the river near Kaede's hut. Kagome and the rest of them were inside, cleaning up after breakfast.

            Kagome thought that he was still angry with her. The truth was though, that he never really was angry in the first place.

            He was just frustrated that for some reason, he was never as contented when she was gone. He didn't like the fact that he felt weak whenever she went back to her time.

            Not to mention he felt weak whenever she was with him as well. But somehow, at the same time, he felt stronger, too.

            'ARG! What is this? Why does she DO that to me?' he thought, walking back to Kaede's as he got himself angry. He knew he shouldn't have thought about it... thinking leads to answering questions... and then new questions come from the answers. It's a vicious cycle that he wanted no part of, knowing that his chances of escaping it once caught were little to none.

            Lucky for him though, as he came out of the woods and onto the path, a voice caught his attention and saved him from the many terrors of exercising his brain.

            "I was walking through the park one day

in the merry, merry month of May!" sang the... 'Boxes with feet?'

            Oh, no... it was a person carrying boxes, and he just couldn't see their face. It smelled like a cat... Inuyasha watched it as it continued to sing.

            "I was taken by surprise

by a pair of—" the cat stopped suddenly. Inuyasha watched as she made a show of trying to peek over the top of the boxes, but when she couldn't she just resolved to look around them. Then she seemed to recognize him —how, he had no idea— and grinned hugely at him, continuing her song.

            "By a pair or golden eyes,

in the merry, merry month of May!" Then she frolicked over to him. "You're Inuyasha, right?"

            He stared at her. He didn't notice it before, but now that she was closer, he could smell that she smelled like those metal youkai in Kagome's time... those mah-sheen things. 'Why does she smell like Kagome's time?' Thinking-- no, that's bad... deciding-- deciding that he would worry about it later, he answered her with a nod.

            "Great! Well I was just bringing these boxes to Kagome. She forgot to take them here with her last night." She paused and sniffed at the air, then nodded to herself as she looked in the direction of Kaede's hut. "Can you please help me carry one of these?" she asked him, lifting the boxes in her arms a bit towards him to indicate that she was talking about them.

            His perpetual scowl crept onto his face as he looked at the boxes and then to her, and said, "Keh. I ain't no pack mule. Carry them yourself."

            The only sign she showed that the answer might not have been the one she was looking for was that her eye twitched. But whether that was because he hurt her feelings or because she didn't really look forward to being blind to the road in front of her, Inuyasha wasn't sure.

            She continued to smile at him, though. "I'll just carry both of them then," she said as she started to continue down the path. Inuyasha followed her, since he was going back to Kaede's anyway. He also had to keep an eye on her... sure, she didn't seem like a threat now, but her cheerfulness brought to mind that Suikotsu character of the Shichinintai... Annoyingly happy one second, and the next he'd be suicidal. Good thing they were all dead.

            Now that he was behind her, Inuyasha could see her clothes better. Her kimono was black with stupid looking circles on it... and much to his displeasure, she had the left side of it tucked up into her sash the way Jakotsu used to wear his. He shuddered at the memory... that guy was just plain disgusting.

            Kitty was getting a little paranoid that there was not a particularly happy dog (even if he was only half) behind her, and he was eerily quiet. She decided to make conversation.

            "I'm Kitty, by the way."

            "Keh."

            ...How polite. But she wouldn't let that get her down! She plastered yet another smile onto her face and asked the first thing that came into her head, "So, find any shikon shards lately?"

~*~

            Back at the hut, Kagome suddenly felt the presence of shikon shards; maybe eight or nine of them. She decided to just tell Sango that she was going to look for Inuyasha. She would be fine without anyone, since Inuyasha wasn't far off. So she started towards the shards.

~*~

            "I swear, I have no use for them! I was just trying to make conversation!" Kitty explained frantically.

            Inuyasha had backed her up against a tree and was pointing Tetsusaiga at her. The only things separating her and that sword that scared the crap out of her with the smell of a dog's mouth were the boxes of ramen.

            "Don't give me that load of bull! What makes you think I'd believe you didn't have any interest in the one thing that practically every demon would kill for? It's no use trying to deny it, you just gave yourself away!"

            Kitty shook her head furiously and pleaded, "Please don't kill me! Even ask Kagome, she'll tell you that I'm not looking for them!"

            "Riiight. I'll buy that."

            "Really?"

            "No."

            Kitty watched as Inuyasha was slammed to the ground by some unseen force.

~*~

            "OSUWARI!!!!!" Kagome hollered. When she saw Inuyasha and Kitty she was at first curious, then shocked, confused, worried, concerned, and then afraid for Kitty's life. So she did the only thing she could think of to stop Inuyasha as quickly as possible and sat him.

            Inuyasha muttered a string of muffled curses through the dirt that would even make a sailor grimace with disgust.

            "Why did you do that, wench?!" he hollered through the dirt.

            "You attacked Kitty!"

            '...So they really DO know each other?' Disregarding that, he said, "Kagome, she's after the shikon shards! Just let me kill her and get another demon out of our way!"

            Kitty, meanwhile, was still leaning on the tree to support herself. 

            "No, Inuyasha! She..." Kagome stopped speaking and stared at Kitty, who she was only now getting a good look at. 'Another demon, he said?' "Two things, Kitty..." she began. "First... how are you here?"

            Kitty just looked at her. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean... I just went through the well. Isn't that how you and Inuyasha do it, too?"

            "...Yes, but we were always the only ones who could do it."

            Kitty smiled at her, regaining her composure from losing it after Inuyasha attacking her. "I guess not anymore, then, eh?"

            Kagome blinked. If only all questions could be answered so simply. "Okay then... secondly, why are you a demon?" she asked, taking in Kitty's ears, tail, stripes, claws, fangs and other assorted demonic attributes.

            "My parents were demons," Kitty answered simply.

            "No kidding, but you used to be human."

            "I only looked human. I just concealed my demon looks by mixing herbs, spices and whatnot the way my father taught me. It works well, but wears off over night."

            "..."

            "..."

            "...One more thing. Why are you here?"

            "You forgot the ramen last night."

            Inuyasha, who was being ignored at the moment, instantly perked up.

            "I went looking for you last night and came here, but it was around two in the morning so I just looked around and went back home. Then I made this," she said, holding out a sleeve of her kimono and smiling, "because I just felt like having one after seeing everyone here wearing them. Then after Souta went to school I went and asked your mom if she knew that her well was a portal and she told me all about how you come here for the shikon shards and stuff. Oh that reminds me! I must have spaced out after you ran off last night because I took the shikon shards from your room with me," she said, taking the jar out of her kimono. She held it out to Kagome, who silently took it with a look of understanding slowly making its way onto her face.

            Looking at the ground as she sorted out a theory in her mind, Kagome asked, "Inuyasha, do you think that the shikon shards were what brought her here last..." She stopped when she looked to where Inuyasha was, and he wasn't there anymore. "Inuyasha?" she called, looking around.

            A little ways down the path was Inuyasha, walking contentedly back to Kaede's with the two enormous boxes of ramen in his arms. If anyone bothered to look closely, they would have seen a slight bounce in his step.

            "Oh sure, NOW he'll carry them," Kitty said with a scowl that was only present on her face for half of a second before her ever cheerful smile took over once again. 

            Kagome laughed nervously at Kitty's comment. What should she do now? Kitty had come to the feudal era, perhaps thinking the whole time that it would be like some sort of field trip... should she explain things to her?

            "Hey Kitty, how much did my mom tell you about this time?" she asked to get an idea of where to start.

            "Oh, just about everything that she knew." Kitty then began to count off the details on her fingers, saying, "She talked about how you met Inuyasha, your quest for the jewel shards, Miroku and his air rip, Shippo and how you found him and fought the thunder brothers, Sango and her brother Kohaku, Naraku and all of his evil plots that have the potential to one day ruin all of your lives completely and possibly end them as well, Kouga and the issues that Inuyasha has with him claiming you as his woman, Inuyasha's half bother Sesshoumaru and his rivalry with Inuyasha, Kikyo and her relationship with Inuyasha and how she died and was then  resurrected only to make it her duty to get in the way, the Shichinintai (which she said was probably the biggest adventure you had to go through), and finally, all of the smaller details such as you and Inuyasha being the only two who were supposed to be able to travel through the well, and the fact that you and him are completely oblivious." Kitty then stopped to take in a well-deserved breath. "Oh yeah, and she also mentioned about most of the demons here wanting the shikon shards, and thus, making them evil and unmoved by the fact that most of the time they kill anyone in their path."

            Talk about run-on sentences.

            'I don't even remember telling my mother half of those things... I think I need to have another discussion with her about reading my diary... but at least I don't have to explain much to Kitty now.' Kagome sighed with relief at that thought. It certainly was a lot to explain, and she had no idea how long it would take. Wait, what was that that Kitty said about her and Inuyasha being oblivious?

            "When you say oblivious... what are we oblivious to, exactly?"

            "Just... things in general." 'More specifically, each other.'

            Kagome nodded in thought, completely ignoring the fact that most people would take that as an insult to their intelligence. 'What do I do now that she's here?'

            "Hey, Kagome?" Kitty said.

            "Yeah?"

            "Can I meet your other friends?" she asked hopefully.

            Before Kagome could take even a second to consider it, Shippo came screaming down the path and jumped into Kagome's arms, mumbling incomprehensible sentences about what Kagome could only guess was the fact that Inuyasha was going to kill him for getting too close to his ramen.

            "Kagome! Hide me!" he said, scampering up the back of her shirt. Then, as if it were an afterthought, he poked his head out of the collar and noticed Kitty for the first time. "Who are you?"

            It was all that Kitty could do not to squeal in delight over how adorable the little fox was, and she was left speechless by the effort of restraining the urge to pet the kid and then run to the store and buy him ten pounds of candy. 

            So, Kagome answered for her. "This is Kitty, Shippo. She's from my time."

            Crawling out of Kagome's shirt and onto her shoulder, Shippo smiled his impeccably cute little smile at Kitty but then turned to Kagome in confusion. "I thought there were no demons in your time... and aren't you and Inuyasha supposed to be the only ones who can go through the well?"

            Kitty finally found her voice and explained how she disguises herself to look human. Then Kagome told him about her theory that the jewel shards were what let Kitty get through the well.

            Shippo nodded in understanding and then jumped onto the ground, where he started skipping around the two girls because he was happy to meet another person from Kagome's time and also had a ton of energy from some chocolate that he had previously eaten.

            Getting back to what they were discussing before Shippo arrived, Kagome said, "Well Kitty, since you're here I guess you could come back to Kaede's and meet the rest of us--"

            "Lady Kagome!"

            All three of them looked down the path to see Miroku approaching them with Sango and Kirara not far in front of him. They watched as Sango looked behind her to glare at Miroku, who she must have not known was following her, and then she called out to Kagome as well.

            Kagome only wondered why they had all come to find her for a moment until she figured that Sango probably just didn't want to be alone with a lech and an anti-social hanyou, and Miroku's reason for coming was either from lack of entertainment or lack of a woman within groping range.

            Getting sick of just standing there, Kagome started walking towards the two approaching them and motioned for Kitty and Shippo to come with her.

            "Kagome, who is that?" Sango asked as the distance between them closed and they all stopped walking while introductions were made.

            So Kagome introduced Kitty to them and told them all about how she was a cat demon (and that apparently there ARE demons in her time) and came from her time through the well somehow.

            "And you are just as old as Lady Kagome?" Miroku asked.

            "Yup," Kitty said cheerfully, happy that she was meeting all of them.

            "Ah, well in that case, I have an important question," he said, taking her hands in his and locking gazes with her as if they were old time lovers. I'm sure you know what comes next. "Will you, in all of your loveliness, consider bearing my—"

            Not surprisingly, all of the years of experience had lead Sango to expect this. Slamming Hiraikotsu onto the perverted monk's head, she effectively cut him off.

            With Miroku off to the side rubbing the newly acquired lump in his cranium, Sango looked at Kitty more carefully. "Are you not native to Japan? Your face looks different," she pointed out. Inuyasha and Shippo had probably noticed too but just didn't think it was important enough to mention or passed it off as some weird birth defect. I'll leave your creative minds to figure out which opinion belonged to whom.

            Kitty smiled brightly at her and explained that she was from America. When Shippo asked where this 'Uh-mer-ick-ah' was though, Kagome cut into the conversation before Kitty introduced the idea that the earth might possibly be round too early in the earth's history. "Hey guys, since she's here already, how would you like it if Kitty stayed here for the rest of the day?"

            At the suggestion, Sango agreed enthusiastically, Shippo cheered and rejoiced that his new friend would be hanging around for a while longer, and Miroku also agreed that it would be an interesting change to have another person from Kagome's time with them.

            As they all continued on their way back to the hut, Kagome pondered about how Kitty was reacting to everything so far. She had recovered quickly from when Inuyasha attacked her, for reasons that remained as mysteries to Kagome… though she guessed that either Kitty was an extremely forgiving person, or she had been warned by Kagome's mother.

            Besides Inuyasha though, she seemed to accept with no trouble at all everything else that was occurring. She even acted completely indifferent when Miroku was asking her his world-renowned 'will you bear my child' question.

            But again, maybe Kagome's mother had warned her. Plus, she probably got over her shock about the well already.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4! All right! Shio makes his appearance in this chapter! All right! And it's pretty long, too! All right! I still have a picture or Kitty if anyone wants to see it! All right! I'm having fun saying all right! All right! And now I'll stop rambling so you can read! All right!

~*~

            "Get away!!!" Inuyasha shouted reflexively at Kitty's tail, swatting a clawed hand at it. Really though, would it EVER learn?

            They were all sitting on the floor in the hut while listening to Kitty go on about the differences between America and Japan (leaving out the part about the whole across the ocean thing) and Inuyasha, who didn't particularly care about much besides his ramen, was eating some off in a corner.

            Now the hut, not really being all that big, seemed even smaller with four humans (Kaede is with them), two youkai and one hanyou all sitting in it. And because of this, they were all closer together than some of them would have liked. More specifically though, Inuyasha was stuck in a corner behind Kitty, who's tail was relentless with its twitching. It was like it was taunting him! The way it just flicking back and forth right in front of him, as if it were stalking its prey, namely, HIS ramen. But that wasn't the worst part, oh on. Just as predators stalk their prey, they also go in for the kill. Such was what her tail occasionally did, whenever it decided that mocking him wasn't good enough, but it just HAD to put the icing on the cake and inch towards his bowl of ramen ever so… what it must have thought was stealthily.

            And Kitty was very, I mean VERY amused by all of this. As she was talking, she was also putting that dark corner of her mind to use by using it to concentrate on what her tail was doing. And the best part was, she could hear him muttering about how irritating it was, as if it was doing everything with a mind of its own. Now believe it or not, Kitty did things like this a lot, and had plenty of experience. Not enough experience to keep herself from laughing at the poor hanyou's troubles, but enough to make comments at such times that prompted the others to unknowingly say something funny so that it sounded like she was laughing with them when she just couldn't hold it in any longer. Ah, the wonders of being multi-taskable.

            Now back to where we started. 

            Inuyasha just couldn't take it any more. He had been patient, he had tried just facing away from it, and he had even *thought* about trying to reason with the thing. But it just WOULDN'T QUIT! It was ruthless! RUTHLESS!!!

            So, when it came after his ramen for about the twenty-third time (yes, he had been counting), he yelled at it and attacked… which prompted a fit of uncontrollable laughter from Kitty.

            The rest of them went silent as they watched Kitty laugh hysterically at something they were oblivious to, and only when her laughs turned silent from lack of oxygen and she fell onto her side did they see what was so funny.

            Inuyasha, who was still behind her, had set down his ramen and gotten up slightly to 'take care of' her tail as he crouched protectively in front of his meal. He swatted a hand at it, and it swished away. He swatted again, and missed it once more.

            Repeat.

            Repeat.

            Repeat.

            Everyone watching sweat-dropped.

            "Inuyasha?" Kagome asked hesitantly. "What… are you doing?"

            Inuyasha realized that they were all watching him, and so he stopped with a 'keh' and grudgingly went back to his corner and started on his ramen again while watching Kitty's tail with a wary eye.

            "It seems that having all of this ramen around has given Inuyasha a paranoid mind," Miroku observed. "Perhaps having such a large bounty to defend from others has sent him over the edge." Everyone nodded in agreement. That seemed logical enough.

            Meanwhile, Shippo decided that anyone who could push Inuyasha's buttons like that without getting hit for it deserved praise, and he was now jumping up and down chanting Kitty's name. When she finally managed to compose herself, Kitty gave Shippo and high-five and they chuckled warmly to each other. Inuyasha sent them each their very own dark glare of death as he ravenously devoured the last of his bowl of ramen.

            After that, nobody really had anything to say about what just happened…

            Kaede cleared her throat, not knowing what else to do to break the strange silence that had fallen over them. The silence was for some, awkward… and for others, it was either amused, comfortable, confused, disbelieving, and of course, on the verge of being enraged. So yeah, all in all, it was just weird to be a part of.

            Tossing his bowl aside, Inuyasha said, "So ANYWAY… while all of you were gone wasting time by doing all of the useless things you do, Myoga was here and he said that there's a rumor floating around a small town in the west about an abnormally strong demon. We might find a shikon shard if we go after it."

            "Inuyasha, can we go tomorrow? I mean, Kitty's here and all…" Kagome said.

            Inuyasha suddenly looked very indignant. "Keh! If you don't think she can handle it, why don't you just send her home?"

            "It's okay," Kitty said. Then she gave a jaw-cracking yawn and continued in a tired voice, "I'd like to see how it is, if it's okay with you all."

            They all looked at her, slightly confused, and Kagome asked, "Why are you so tired all of the sudden?"

            Kitty blinked at her. "Hmm? Oh, well I haven't gone to sleep in two days… I don't really have a normal sleeping schedule. I just take a nap whenever I'm tired… which doesn't happen half as much as it would for a human, but still…" She yawned again. "I'm really tired right now."

            Inuyasha muttered something that sounded distinctly like 'weakling'. Kitty simply smiled at him, not taking any offence to that. After all, he WAS a very cranky hanyou all the time anyway, and she DID just spend at least twenty minutes mocking him. "Well… I'm gonna go home and… take a nap," she said, her speech slowing from the weariness that had overcome her so suddenly. But it was always like this… She would be perky one minute, then she'd do something that took up a considerable amount of energy and she'd be all out of the liveliness that she could somehow hold onto for up to four days without sleep. Maybe if she kept herself busy for longer than that, she could go for five. But that probably isn't too healthy…

            Kagome nodded to Kitty, and then turned to Inuyasha. "Would that be okay, Inuyasha? I really would rather go tomorrow anyway…"

            Inuyasha scowled at the lot of them, and then turned his back to everyone with yet another 'keh'. Oh boy, they were SO lucky that he got a stomach ache from all that ramen, let me tell you. Otherwise, they would be leaving right then and there and they'd never hear the end of his harping over their laziness.

            Kitty, who hadn't taken long to figure out Inuyasha's unique communication methods, smiled thankfully at his back even though he couldn't see it and said, "Well then, I'm off."

            So Kagome gave her a shikon shard so that she could get through the well, and Kitty was on her way.

~*~

            When Kitty had gone back to her… native(?) time, she only took a moment to look around the shrine before finding a place to nap. She saw Kagome's grandfather sweeping the steps, she heard Souta inside watching Aladdin, and she saw Hitomi through the kitchen window chatting like a giddy little schoolgirl with Mrs. H. That was to be expected, though; they WERE sisters, so naturally, they needed more than just a measly 10-hour long family reunion to catch up on each other's lives, living in different countries and all.

            Kitty only vaguely noticed these things, along with the fact that Saburo was inside the motor home and looking for some land to buy on his laptop. She didn't pay anything much mind as she made her groggy way to the motor home, and in her spell of drowsiness, she was completely oblivious to the fact that she, for some reason, decided to sleep on top of the motor home rather than in it. Maybe whatever brain cells that were still working and somehow miraculously allowing her limbs to function liked it better outside. Whatever. Time to snooze.

~*~

            And so she slept. The cold, metal top of the motor home was rather comfortable, actually, and so she had no trouble regaining every ounce of energy she could possibly retain from a short nap time of only three hours. That's right kids, she went from pooped to hyper in three hours without any sugar. It must be magic.

            So now, thoroughly rested, full of gusto, and completely bored, she decided to go see what Mrs. H. and Hitomi were doing. Maybe watching some cheesy after-school soap opera. That'd be mildly interesting… mildly.

            As it turns out though, when Kitty let herself into the house, they weren't watching TV. Actually, they were still in the kitchen, sipping at some tea and *still* chatting it up like there was no tomorrow, or even a day after that. They had probably been having what had to have been the deepest conversation Kitty could imagine, since she assumed that they had probably never stopped for the past three hours.

            And after they greeted each other and said their hellos, Mrs. H. volunteered to tell Kitty what was so enthralling that they couldn't stop discussing it. Now evidently, when Kitty handed the phone over to Hitomi before she went to the past, saying that Mrs. H. was going to tell her where Kitty was going, Mrs. H. was serious. She didn't make up an excuse or anything, no— she did just as she said, and told Hitomi exactly where Kitty was going.

            Then, though, Mrs. H. said that her intentions weren't like that at first; she was going to think up some other plausible explanation for Kitty's sudden lack of existence. But then, once Mrs. H. considered it, telling Hitomi didn't seem like such a bad idea. After all, they were sisters, as I said before, and so they weren't all that different, meaning that Hitomi's acceptance of the situation was just as easy to come to her as Mrs. H's, maybe even easier. Plus, Mrs. H. figured that Kitty may start traveling to the past as often as Kagome, and if she was going to be gone for that long and that frequently, then Hitomi had the right to know.

            Some of you might expect this to worry Kitty, but quite frankly, she couldn't hope for anything better to happen while she took a nap. Most of the time she would miss important things while she was asleep during the day… like that time that she missed the part of a conversation where Hitomi told them all they were going to Japan, and so it was a complete surprise to her the day that they had to get on the plane.

            But I'm getting off the subject.

            So when Kitty found out that Hitomi was now in on the secret, she got caught up into their talk about it. Then she amused them with the short story about how she so easily irritated Inuyasha while he was eating, and before she knew it, Mrs. H. had given her some tea, and time seemed to fly by as she talked with them.

            Then finally, after spending about an hour with the two women, she felt like returning to the past. 

            As she walked by the rental truck parked next to the motor home, she was reminded of the semi-long walk that she would have to take to get from the well to Kaede's hut. Knowing that she would want some entertainment, she got the idea to bring along her CD player.

            But when she was wondering if Kagome had ever shown Shippo a CD player, she got to thinking that he might want to listen to the music, too. So she decided to bring something that could let them all listen to music at the same time: her electric keyboard.

            Ah yes, her keyboard and all its glory. Good thing it could run on D batteries as well as electricity, because there most likely wouldn't be any random outlets on the walls of Kaede's hut. And the keyboard was better than a boom-box, because it was so much more fun! She was pretty sure that if anyone was going to at least take interest in it, then Shippo would, and he would most likely play with the thing for hours… better take some headphones for the kid, just in case he gets too key-happy. 

            And hey, why not take that big sack of D batteries in there, too? They'll probably come in handy when the ones in the keyboard run out… what with the fact that Shippo would probably entertain himself with it 24/7, and that Kitty was now turning on the built-in mp3 player to whatever the first song on there was… it happened to be 'You Be Good to Mama' from the movie Chicago.

            So, armed with her keyboard and big sack of extra D batteries, she set off towards the well house, which would take her back to the feudal era.

~*~

            Sitting against the sacred tree near the well was a slightly disgruntled kitsune/dog demon. Wearing a green and white kimono with fur on the edges of the front, which was slightly open, his green eyes lined with long red lashes narrowed irritably as he remembered why he was even sitting in the spot that was so rudely assigned to him.

            ~Flashback~

            Inuyasha was just sitting there, up in his tree, trying to ignore the seemingly endless re-telling of a victory well-won over a shikon shard from his friend, but the guy needed to get a clue. Sure, they were buddies and all, but as much as Inuyasha got along with the kitsune/dog demon, he didn't particularly care to hear about how he charmed a desperate female into giving him some booty… you know, as in money or payment… but it could be taken whichever way. The shikon shard just happened to be what brought him into town.

            So having enough, Inuyasha spoke up.

            "Shio, I guess I'm glad that I have more that just a perverted monk now that you —a player/pimp/man whore— are here, but you need to stop talking now."

            He just kept going, probably well aware that he was getting on the hanyou's nerves. 

            Seeing that talking to his friend was fruitless while he was reminiscing, Inuyasha jumped from is branch and onto the ground next to him, where he whacked Shio on the head with the sheath of Tessaiga. 

            "Hey, man, don't be hatin'!" he said in mock offence.

            Inuyasha just grunted an unintelligible something… probably a curse, knowing him…

            Not long after that, Miroku, being just a little bit jealous that every girl he tried to 'get his hands on' was always distracted by Shio, got the bright idea to make him wait for Kitty while they started off for the rumored shikon shard. With their demon speed, they would be able to catch up, after all.

            ~End Flashback~

            Shio sighed irritably as he swatted some of his long red hair out of his eye. But then a smirk grew on his face… because, on the bright side (from what he heard from Kagome), Kitty sounded like a fine little pussy cat. ^_^

~*~

            Kitty sang along with the keyboard, waiting for the blue and purple time-traveling light to drop her into the past.

            "Got a little motto

Always pulls me through

When you're good to Mama,

Mama's good to you!"

            The space around her turned to a dim glow of sunlight, so she stood and leapt right out of the well, still singing.

            "There's a lot of favors

I'm prepared to do

You do one for Mama,

She'll do one for you!"

            When she landed she shut her mouth up tight and turned down the volume on the keyboard, because she DOES have SOME morals, and anyone who knows the next bit of lyrics would only expect this from her.

            As she waited for that particular verse to end, she started strutting along the path to Kaede's hut, swaying her hips and doing a dance that matched the song's beat.

            She noticed a dog/kitsune demon sitting at a tree— or Inuyasha's tree, to be more precise— and gave him a smile and a wave. It was a nice day, she was well-rested and happy, so why not? Said male demon just winked at her, smirking slyly, but otherwise not moving at all.

            That distraction caused the song to progress further than just the one part, but she turned the volume back up anyway and started singing again once she had passed the other presence in the clearing.

            "If you want my gravy

Pepper my ragu

Spice it up for Mama,

And she'll get hot for you!

When they pass that basket

Folks contribute to

You put in for Mama,

And she'll put out for you!"

            She didn't really like the song all that much, especially with such suggestive lyrics… but she loved singing, she was practically high on cheerfulness, and she wanted music to dance to, so by golly, she sang!

            "Are we trying to get across some underlying messages, here?" a smooth voice whispered in her ear, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin. With reflexes like a… cat, obviously… she spun around to face the stranger. It was the same guy she had waved to.

            He was shaking with suppressed laughter and mirth as he held up his hands in front of him, saying, "Now, don't be so alarmed! I'm a lover, not a fighter! ^_~"

            She slowly turned off the keyboard, never taking her eyes off of the stranger, trying to figure out whether or not to trust him.

            A brief silence passed before he waved a hand around in the air dismissively and said, "So anyway, Inuyasha and the others already took off for the shikon shard and made me stay here to wait for you." Then he flung an arm around her shoulders and said with a perfectly innocent expression and an almost childlike voice, "I'm Pimpmaster Shio! But you can just call me Shio."

            Kitty didn't do anything but give him a funny look, blush a little bit, and mumble, "I'm Kitty."

            "Yes, yes! I have been informed, of course," he replied as he began to walk and also pushed Kitty along with his arm. Kitty was going somewhat reluctantly, though.

            Now, anyone reading this should know what Shio is like. If you don't, go read a few of Scorpiogal's stories to get the gist. Actually, even if you don't particularly care to have the best clue of what he's like, you should still read some of her stories, 'cause they're funny as hell.

            But anyway…

            Anyone who knows what Shio is like knows that he's a pervert; but a different kind than Miroku. He's the kind that plays with a girl's mind until she either gives into him or goes insane.

            For some reason though, he didn't really feel like it at the moment, so he was short of things to say. Kitty wasn't talking either, since she was waiting for Shio to say something normal to redeem himself. Kitty was breezy, and she knew it, but she wasn't naïve, and Shio's comments just weirded her out.

            Shio was getting bored.

            "So what have you there? That thing that was playing the music, what is it?"

            Kitty, happy to break the silence, smiled and explained. "It's an electric keyboard. I brought it to listen to music and I thought Shippo might have fun with it too."

            Shio raised his eyebrows with interest. "How does it work?"

            Kitty held it in one arm while she showed him how to turn it on and pushed a few keys to play 'Hot Crossed Buns', causing him to put his own arm down if he didn't want to get in her way.

            "So you can create music with it also? But how did you do that without pushing any buttons before?" Shio asked, his curiosity growing.

            "It has a built-in mp3 player."

            He nodded, understanding her, and somehow knowing what an mp3 player is. But we won't question his unreasonable knowledge of some futuristic things. That just wouldn't be logical.

            They got to Kaede's hut and were about to pass it and just keep going, but then Kitty decided that she didn't want to carry all of her cargo, so she stopped to put it into the hut. But then Shio protested to leaving the keyboard, so she agreed to bring it along the journey.

            Inuyasha and the rest of the gang had left only an hour before Kitty had got back to the feudal era, as Shio told her, and the trip to get to where the shard was would probably take a few hours, so they would definitely be able to catch in time so that they wouldn't miss anything.

~*~

So how was it? I had so much fun with the beginning… it was stupendous.

I don't own Aladdin or Chicago.

Reviews = a motivated writer = faster chapters.

^_^


	5. Chapter 5

WhoOoOo! Chapter 5! Let's all party!

In case anyone was confused… Kagome did ask to leave the next day, but then Kitty intervened: "It's okay," Kitty said. Then she gave a jaw-cracking yawn and continued in a tired voice, "I'd like to see how it is, if it's okay with you all." That kind of had them decide to go that day… though I admit, I could have been clearer with that. Sorry.

ANYWAY!!!!!

Hope you all liked the last chappie anyway. In fact, I hope you like this whole thing so far. That includes this chappie… and those to come. LOVE THEM! I COMMAND YOU!

~*~

            "Does it have 'Like a Virgin' on there?" Shio asked about the keyboard, because that's one of his favorite songs.

            "Um… no, but it has 'Like a _Surgeon_'," Kitty replied after thinking for a bit.

            Shio looked crestfallen. "But it's not the same!" He then pouted for a bit.

            "I can play the tune if you want…" Kitty offered, trying to settle the keyboard in one arm and use the other hand to play the song.

            "Aw, what a doll you are! You'd do that for your beloved Shio?" ^_^

            "Er… well I'll try." She was having difficulties with using just the one hand.

            "Having trouble?" He watched as Kitty nodded while trying fruitlessly to figure out a way to get both hands free. Then Shio got an idea…

~*~

            "Inuyasha?"

            "What?"

            "Osuwari."

            Slam.

            "**QUIT DOING THAT!!!"**

            Kagome looked down at him with a flat expression. "It's not like you don't deserve it for leaving Kitty to face Shio."

            Inuyasha muttered some curses into the ground before the beads let him get up, and he dusted the dirt off of his clothes as he spoke. "But you've been doing that every five minutes since we left Kaede's, and that was an hour ago! That's 12 sits, Kagome! TWELVE!!!"

            Shippo, who had been with Sango for his own safety, ran up onto Kagome's shoulder to help her with the argument.

            "Kagome's right, Inuyasha! Kitty brought all of that ramen here for you and all you do to thank her is leave her to Shio!"

            "Shut up, brat! This doesn't concern you!" Inuyasha yelled as he brought his fist down onto the little kitsune's head.

            "I~N~U~Y~A~S~H~A!!!"

            Behind them, Sango, Miroku and Kirara all shook their heads. Every time…

            "Lady Sango, there is still time to make a different, more likely choice," Miroku said as he pulled out a calendar that he found in Kagome's backpack and flipped through it. "Until all of the villagers who are in on this hand over their money, the bets aren't officially set."

            Meanwhile, you could still hear Shippo sobbing while Inuyasha and Kagome argued some more.

            ("How many times do I have to SIT –slam- you to make you leave poor Shippo alone!?")

            Sango looked at him determinedly. "No, I'm sticking with December. I have a feeling it will happen during the winter."

            ("The stupid brat was poking his nose into stuff that isn't even any of his business!")

            "What do you mean by that? What's so great about winter?"

            ("Well I'm glad he did! At least now there's another person in the conversation with an actual BRAIN!")

            "Well it's just more romantic. There's the snow, and all… it's just better."

            ("But Kagome, for him to be 'another person with a brain', there would have had to already been one in the first place!")

            Miroku got one of his perverted looks. "Why, Lady Sango, I'm so happy that I know now! Perhaps when it gets to that time, you could show me some reasons that it's 'better'?"

            ("You DO realize that even though you just insulted me, you also agreed with me and insulted yourself at the same time, right?")

            Sango looked at him flatly. " 'Better' doesn't necessarily mean 'more opportune for lecherous monks to grope women with impunity', so stop getting ideas."

            ("…Huh," Inuyasha said in realization.)

            "Who said I was getting ideas? And I am a monk, so if I did get ideas, they certainly wouldn't be anything that would offend you."

            ("Mhmm," Kagome hummed. They seem to have somehow resolved their issue.)

            "Oh, right, and I suppose that all those time that you— PERVERT!!!" Sango immediately turned to slap Miroku square on the face when she felt a hand 'accidentally brush against' her backside.

            (Kagome, Inuyasha and Shippo took the opportunity of the end to their argument to listen to the beginning of one between Sango and Miroku. Well… more like a session of Sango yelling at a perfectly calm Miroku, who never got angry or to a point where he would raise his voice or speak sharply to anyone. But hey, it was entertaining all the same. Kirara joined the three to avoid getting in either of Sango or Miroku's way while they weren't paying attention to where they were walking.)

            "You know, I'm actually impressed. You're the only person I've ever met who could end a conversation with groping a person, when the topic had nothing to do with either of us in the first place! Tell me, do you even remember what we were talking about, or were you just pretending to take part in the verbal communication while you plotted a way to twist my words and get me distracted so that I might not notice when you copped a feel?"

            Miroku feigned a look of offence. "Of course I remember what we were discussing! We were making a list of all the things we could to together during the winter."

            Sango ignored the way he edited that just to try to get at her. She was starting to think that maybe her slapping him turned him on, and she was having qualms over doing that too many times, lest she get him even more riled up. So instead of screaming at him or resorting to violence, she just fumed silently before she responded. "But do you recall how it started?"

            "Yes."

            "Then give me proof."

            "Kagome and Inuyasha had begun to argue, and so I brought up our bet and asked it you would like to change your bet to a month other than December for when you think they will finally admit their love to each other— because, as I said, you will only lose money if you bet on a time that is not distant enough. It would be wise to follow the other villagers' examples and choose a time around May of two years from now."

            A few feet in front of them, Kagome and Inuyasha stopped in their tracks. The entire village was betting on when they'd… oh, neither of them could even finish the though. That monk would pay.

            They both turned around as the screen switched to a view of the sky and various sounds of painful contact were heard. Then it reverted back to the group as Kagome and Inuyasha stormed off in the same direction they had been previously walking down the path, Shippo patting Kagome's head comfortingly from her shoulder. Sango was standing next to a crumpled Miroku, looking down at him with satisfied amusement, Kirara once again nearby her owner. 

            "See that? See how well they work together? It will definitely happen, but judging from their reaction to that, not any time soon," Miroku assessed with a high-pitched voice, courtesy of the pain he was feeling. However, he still remained calm as he stood up and proceeded to continue down the path after the other three who had gone ahead.

            There was a long silence as they all went on their way, getting closer to their destination.

            "Kagome, I'm hungry," Shippo whined. "Can we stop for lunch?"

            Inuyasha opened his mouth to protest, but before any noise could come out of it, Kagome glared at him, just DARING him to start up another argument. Inuyasha swore he could see flames behind her.

            So they stopped for lunch.

            But just as Kagome was lighting the fire to heat the water for the ramen (what else did you expect them to eat?), she noticed everyone staring at something in the distance behind her.

            She turned around to see what was so enthralling, and what she saw made her wonder if that argument with Inuyasha over Kitty's well-being in Shio's presence could have been avoided.

            Her back had been facing the stretch of path that they had already walked, and so when she looked behind her, Kitty and Shio were approaching them. 

            …But they weren't just approaching them. They were also singing along to 'Like a Virgin', which Kitty was playing the tune for on her keyboard. How was she able to do that? Well, she was sitting on Shio's shoulders, and the keyboard was resting on his head so that she could easily use both hands.

            Kitty was obviously just having a grand ol' time with her new buddy, since she seemed not to have any qualms over doing some weird dance that looked even more strange because she was sitting… but Kitty's wiggling plus the fact that Shio had his head between Kitty's legs seemed to be WAY too pleasurable to him for either of the two's own good.

            However, Kitty was perfectly oblivious to that.

            "Um…" Kagome said in her stupor. It just wasn't a very common sight to behold.

            Kitty must have heard her because she skipped a few lines to end the song. Once they both finished singing out the last line, Kitty waved to the group and called out, "Hey guys! What's up?"

            "Uh…" was their intelligent answer.

            Shio and Kitty reached the group and Kitty did a leap-frog maneuver to get off of Shio's shoulders. She ended up taking the keyboard with her and landing in front of Shio, where she sat herself down and observed what the others had stopped for. After coming to the conclusion that they were about to eat lunch, Miroku's expression caught her eye… he was looking from her to Shio, and he looked extremely jealous of something. She just shrugged it off.

            Shio sat next to Kitty and glanced into Kagome's open yellow backpack at the load of ramen, which seemed twice the size that she usually had in there.

            "Where the hell did all that ramen come from?" he asked, helping himself to one of the cups. Inuyasha glared at him for daring to do such a thing, but he probably would have clobbered him also had they not been best friends.

            Kitty filled him in on where it came from.

            "So, uh, did you get here okay?" Kagome asked.

            " 'Course we did! I met Shio at the well and then we were on our way!" Kitty said. Then she glomped onto Shio. "He's so much fun!"

            Shio looked very smug and said, "Why yes, yes I am."

            After that, Kagome and the few other people who had been worried about Kitty relaxed. They ate their lunch and continued on their way towards the demon that was rumored to have the shard.

~*~

            Finally, they found the village. They asked around, and most of the people told them that the demon was usually in town, and it always disguised itself differently and never stayed in the same place. Most of the people they asked also told them that the demon would work someplace, and then it would feed off of the last person to be wherever it was late at night.

            One villager said that lately, he heard that the demon was in the geisha house.

            So they went there to stay until nightfall.

~*~

            They waited and waited, but the demon never showed itself. It was getting close to morning when they all figured that maybe it was a weak demon, even with a shikon shard, and so it would only attack if there was only one person left. So they left Inuyasha in there and the rest of them went outside, because Inuyasha would be able to handle it if the demon jumped him.

            Soon enough, once Inuyasha was by himself, out came the demon. It was a chameleon demon, so that must have been how it managed to disguise itself so easily. It was incredibly fast as well.

~*~

            Inuyasha led the demon outside so that the building wouldn't get damaged. They battled with it, and it proved to be very difficult because of its speed and camouflage. Sango's Hiraikotsu missed most of the time, and when it did hit, it didn't even do enough damage to make it count. Inuyasha tried to use kaze no kizu on it, but its scales were some of the toughest pieces of armor they'd seen.

            So it turned out that the demon wasn't weak, just tactful.

            And it did have a shikon shard, thankfully. Kagome spotted it stuck in the roof of the demon's mouth. But while she was distracted, the demon's tail came around behind her and was about to knock her over… and everyone who saw it couldn't do anything about it. Kagome was by herself behind the demon except for Shio, Shippo and Kitty, and their eyes weren't behind them.

            But just when it was about to make contact, Kitty heard the sound of it whipping through the air and thought faster than she had in her life. She went into her full demon form, picked up the other three who were with her and high-tailed it out of there just in time.

            Her demon form was a little bigger than Kirara. She was completely black, and one would call her a panther, except for the fact that her fur was a bit longer and her face had more of the shape of a tiger. So basically, she looked like a black tiger.

            So for the rest of the battle, Shio, Kagome and Shippo got a ride on Kitty. Kagome told Inuyasha to get the demon to open its mouth, and she shot a purifying arrow into it, hitting her target. It fell with a ground-breaking rumble, and she quickly found the shard to purify it before the demon could regenerate itself.

            They stayed the rest of the night at the house of an extremely thankful villager, and then left in the morning.

~*~

            "Here in the forest, we see trees, grass, and other various plants. Coming to a clearing, if you would look to the right, we see a path with a group of travelers. It appears as though they are returning home from a great triumph. Ah, look there! That must be their spoils from the hunt. Good job, ol' blokes," Kitty narrated like an Australian tour guide as she prowled through some trees on the edge of the path. Kagome and Shio were the only ones who found any amusement in it though, since nobody else knew what she was imitating, or that she was imitating anything, for that matter. 

            Kitty looked at the group, and saw that they were all pretty cheerful.

            Except for Inuyasha. He was just walking along with his scowl in place and his arms crossed in the sleeves of his haori.

            Kitty changed into her full demon form and kept walking so that nobody would see her mope over not being able to get even a smile out of Inuyasha. But Sango, who knew what a sulking cat looked like, and attempted to cheer her up.

            "Don't worry Kitty, Inuyasha's always grumpy after he saves a village in the process of getting a shikon shard," she said. That earned a chuckle if agreement from the rest of the group, and Kitty stopped sulking, but stayed in her demon form.

            Shippo was in front of her and to the left, and he was fun, so she picked him as her next target. She wove around everyone so what she was directly behind him, and then she stalked up behind the little fox in a complete silence that only a cat can achieve. She held her breath and when her face was right behind him, she pushed into his back and snorted out a puff of air. He screeched in surprise and scampered up onto Kagome's shoulder, where he took the time to see that it was only Kitty, and he laughed.

            He was just so cute!!! ^_^ Kitty felt much better after that.

            That little prank she just pulled reminded her of something that she could remember her uncles playing with her and all of the other kids in the family… they would tag each other at random times and say 'got ya last'. It was an on-going thing that they would do every time they went to family things. It wasn't anything like tag, where you would chase the victim— you just got them when the opportunity came up.

            She slowed her pace so that she was walking next to Miroku, who she hadn't singled out yet in any way shape or form. Then she changed herself into a human again, and asked, "Wanna play a game?"

            He thought about it and said, "Sure."

            She poked him in the arm. "Got ya last."

            He just blinked at her. "Did I win?"

            "Nope. I won that round. The game never ends; you just get in the lead by getting someone last, and not letting someone get you. Get it?"

            He nodded. "Yup" Then he attempted to get her last, but she was too quick. She had already moved ahead next to Shio, who was listening to the mp3 player on Kitty's electric keyboard.

            "Sorry Miroku, but nobody's ever got me last, and nobody ever will. I'm just too quick!" she said smugly.

            Suddenly, the next tune that was playing on the keyboard caught Kitty's attention.

            Kagome also recognized the bass drums and brass instruments that were playing at the beginning of it. "Where have I heard this song before?" she asked.

            "The Disney movie, Aladdin! You know, when Prince Ali was coming into the city riding on Abu? That was my favorite part ^_^" Kitty explained.

            "Oh yeah! That was so great. I loved that."

            Kitty started to sing along with it, since she learned the lyrics by osmosis or something while Souta was watching the movie during her nap the other day. She changed the lyrics though… just to make them more suitable.

            "Make way

for Sir Puppy!

Say hey

It's Sir Puppy!"

            Kagome laughed at the change and started listening better to what else Kitty would make different.

            "Hey, clear the way

in the old bazaar

Hey, you! Let us through

It's a bright new star

Oh come be the first on your block to meet his eye!

Make way, here he comes!

Ring bells, bang the drums!

Are you gonna love this guy!"

            She glomped onto Inuyasha.

            "Sir Puppy, fabulous he, Inuyasha!

Genuflect, show some respect!

Down on one knee!

Now quit trembling in your fear,

'Cause your new hero is here

So come and meet his spectacular coterie!

            Inuyasha was confused. He didn't know whether to glare at Kitty, or to look arrogant because she was praising him. He opted to keep his face blank for the time being.

            "Sir Puppy, mighty is he, Inuyasha!

Strong as ten regular men, definitely!"

            He made his decision. He'd glare at her. "Hey, I'm even stronger than that, and you know it!"

            "He faced a moth and his horde!

One hundred bad guys with swords!

Who killed those goons and their lord?

Why, Sir Puppy!"

            Kagome decided to join in, since she knew some of the words as well, and Kitty just looked like she was having a blast with it.

            Kitty couldn't think of anything to change some of the next lyrics to off the top of her head, so she just let the keyboard go on with it.

            Keyboard: He's got seventy-five golden camels!

            Kitty: "Isn't he gorgeous, Kag?"

            Keyboard: Purple peacocks, he's got fifty-three!

            Kagome: "Fabulous Kitty, I love the dog ears."

            Kitty: "When it comes to exotic-type mammals…" ::gestures towards Shio, Shippo, herself and Inuyasha::

            Shippo: ::wanting to be part of the fun:: "Has he got a zoo?"

            Kity: "I'm telling you, it's a world-class menagerie!"

            The next part, Kitty and Kagome sung in synchronization, with Kagome in the background, who had also glomped onto the poor victim of the song. The rest of the gang was still watching with amusement.

            Kitty: "Sir Puppy, handsome is he, Inuyasha!

That physique, how can I speak? Weak at the knees!

(Kagome: "There's no question this puppy's alluring

Never ordinary, never boring.

Everything about the man just plain impresses!)

            Kitty: "Now get on out in that square

Adjust your hair and prepare

To gawk and grovel and stare at Sir Puppy!"

(Kagome: "He's a winner; he's a whiz, and wonder!

He's about to pull my heart asunder!

And I absolutely LOVE the way he dresses!" ::swoons::)

            Inuyasha had forgiven Kitty. Now he was just blushing and concentrating on what Kagome just sang out. Did she mean that? He did look good in red, after all…

Kitty: "He has battled a white, evil monkey,

And to kill it would give him much glee!

He's got pals, he's got comrades and buddies!

They bow to his whim, love serving him!

They're just lousy with loyalty…

To Puppy…!

Sir Puppy…!

Sir Puppy! Amorous he, Inuyasha!

Heard your priestess was a sight, lovely to see!

And that, good people, is why

He got dolled up and dropped by

With tons of ramen,

Perverts galore,

With his demon huntress,

A kitsune and more,

With his purvey priest

and his sword (the beast!)

and cat that warbles on key!

Make way for Sir Puppy!!!!!"

            Kitty finally got the smile out of Inuyasha that she had been wanting. He probably didn't need it, and Kitty would probably regret singing that later, but he looked like his ego had just been inflated to three-times its original size.

            But why wouldn't it have been? They just dedicated a song to him. And they changed the lyrics of it to fit him to boot! Finally, the recognition he deserves! And he was starting to like that electric keyboard.

            Finally, Kaede's hut was coming into view.

~*~

Wooooooo-y! That was a long sucker. Did you like it? Huh? Did you? HUH?! Tell me in a review! And flames are accepted, too… though I don't know why you would ever want to flame me… I mean, I'm just so wonderful and talented, and I KNOW that you got at least one good laugh out of this. Be honest. You did. I rule.

…

You're right, that was Inuyasha who got the ego boost… sorry 'bout that. *becomes humble* Gimmie some good reviews? Please?


	6. Chapter 6

I'm so so so so so so so so so so so HYPER!!!!! I can't wait to get through some of the less interesting parts of the story and start writing the fluffy funny yay hooray-ish parts!!! SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO HYPER!!!!! 

**_Sham es muy loca!!!_**

Private joke, people…

Yeah, this story has big plans in the fluff department! I have like this whole fluff archive thing going! *Bounces in chair* **SO hyper!**

Enjoy!!!

~*~

            "It was PANDELIRIUM!!!" Kitty said in a redneck accent while doing exaggerated hand gestures and waving her arms. She was telling Kaede all about the battle with the chameleon demon. Meanwhile, Inuyasha was up in a tree outside, Kagome was somewhere out there as well, and Sango, Miroku, Shio and Shippo were in the hut with Kitty and Kaede.

            (For those of you who don't know, pandelirium is a cross between pandemonium and delirium. And no, it isn't a real word.)

            "That there demon jus' didn't know what he had comin', no sir-y. He was a purty good opponunt, though. I ain't never see a demon 'at could whip a tail like 'at. But luck'ly, I was quick 'nuff t' switch t' muh demon form, an' we r-u-n-n-o-f-t from 'at spot faster thun a greased-up swine with an itch he coul'n scratch."

            Kaede just smiled and nodded… so did pretty much everyone else. Kitty was nice and all… but sometimes she was just weird.

            But at least Shippo found the parts that he could actually understand amusing.

            "Hey, Kitty?" Kagome said, coming into the hut.

            "Yeah?"

            Kagome walked up to her and looked very secretive about something, and she kept glancing at the doorway nervously. "I need to go back to our time…" she whispered. "…Can you get me to the well without Inuyasha knowing?"

            Kitty beamed, glad that she could have something to help with and be useful. "Of course I can! I need to go back too anyway, so why not?" she said as she walked around Kagome and looked out to see where Inuyasha was. "Okay, climb on my back and I can get you over there in no time."

            "Thanks!"

            "No problem!" ^_^

            "When are you coming back?" Shippo asked.

            Kagome pondered. "Hmm… sometime later today. I just need to get some notes from one of my friends so that I can study for a test."

            "M'kay! Will you bring something back for me?" ^___^

            Kagome laughed and patted his head. "Sure." Then she climbed onto Kitty's back.

            "Okay, hold on," she warned.

            Kitty strolled out into the open pathway, and started down it with a very wobbly pace, making noises like an airplane and spinning around a few times, just for good measure. She also made it a point to be very LOUD.

            "VROOM!!!"

            "Kitty, what are you doing?" Kagome asked, noticing that Inuyasha happened to hear Kitty, as hard as that may be to believe.

            "Just trust me! VROOOOOM! Brrrriiiingdingding! D-d-ding, ding, bang! Bong! EEEEEEUUURRRMMMMM!" Kitty continued to go down the path in that manner, and she made Kagome think several times that they would fall over with all of the swerving she was doing from one side of the path do the other.

            Miraculously, they made it to the well without interruption from Inuyasha. Once they hopped in, got back to their own time and were walking out of the well house, Kagome questioned why Inuyasha didn't stop them, when he clearly knew they were there.

            "Well, if you were trying to go back home, he would have been on the alert for quiet noises. And no offence, but since I was so loud and obvious, he wasn't quick enough to see what was right in front of him, being too busy with trying to focus on any sounds that might indicate an attempted *quiet* and *stealthy* escape."

            Actually, that was pretty darn clever.

            So Kagome went into the house to call up one of her friends, since they would be home from school by that time, and was rewarded with a bombardment of questions about her _sudden_ case of _chronic indigestion. _

            Meanwhile, Kitty goes to the motor home and is greeted my Hitomi and Saburo. They tell her that they've enrolled her in Kagome's school, and that they hadn't managed to find just a plot of land, but some property that already had a house to boot, and it was impossibly cheap, too, for a house that was—*gasp!*—right near a shrine! Yes, they bought a neighboring house to the shrine... But we won't get into how that happened or why it was so inexpensive, because the author just doesn't feel like giving an explanation besides 'because I said so, and you just need to accept it'. 

            So they got a house, but the only catch was: it was short one room. But that was okay, since they had the motor home, and they figured that Kitty was responsible enough to have that as a room instead. It was like a pool house, just more separate… they could deal with that… so long as Kitty was good about it— which, of course, she would be.

            So Kagome finished clearing up her medical history with Eri, and agreed to meet at WacDnald's. And what a coincidence, Kitty was going there to apply for a job! So they took the bus there together after Kitty mixed up a potion for herself to look human.

~*~

            "Name: Kitty *insert last name here*… age: 18… sex: no thank you— oh! Nope, that'd be female," Kitty said as she filed out a job application. She and Kagome were sitting in a booth while Kitty did that and Kagome waited for Eri.

            When Eri did finally come, she had brought Ayumi and Yuka with her. That was forgivable, though… but ONLY because they didn't bring Hojo too, and Kitty could meet them and have somebody when she got to school… whenever she went for her first day.

            "So you're from America and your foster dad works for Sony, and you're staying here while he works on a new project?" Yuka asked.

            "That's right! But enough about me, tell me what school's like where I'll be going," Kitty said, instantly getting along with Kagome's three friends. Is it impossible for her to make an enemy?

            Eri smirked and immediately started talking about how she and the other two were trying to hook up Kagome with Hojo before anyone else could say anything. Kagome sweat-dropped heavily in the background. So it seemed that Kitty had a new mission: Get Hojo off of Kagome's back! But for now, she's start by steering the conversation away from the guy that obviously annoyed Kagome every time he was brought up.

            "Yeah, that's great and all, but what are the teachers like? What are the classes? When's lunch? I can worry about the social pyramid of the school later."

            So they (and Kagome, since they were being normal girls who weren't driven completely by estrogen anymore) filled her in on school life in Tokyo.

            Later on, Kagome decided that it was time to go back to the feudal era and face Inuyasha's wrath. They said their good-byes, and they all left.

            When they got back to the shrine, Kagome went through the well, but Kitty stayed behind because Mrs. H. asked her to baby-sit Souta while she went shopping. Kagome and Kitty made plans for Kitty to go to the feudal era afterwards though, and she would stay there until Sunday (which was when she was told to call and find out if she got that job).

~*~

            MEANWHILE!!!

            Not long after Kagome and Kitty left, the other members of the group began to disperse as well. Sango was having issues with being the only woman around for Miroku to… relieve his stress upon, so she went for a walk. Miroku decided to stalk her in case she just so happened to take a bath… but he was only looking out for her while she was vulnerable, honest! The lech… Kaede had gone to the village to treat some ill children, and Shippo was gnawing on Inuyasha's head— no, wait… he just got punted all the way into the village with Kaede.

            So, his entertainment having dwindled down to nothing, Shio went outside to bug Inuyasha.

            …No, that wasn't what he intended to do, but let's face it: No matter what anybody does and no matter how they do it, it's gonna bug Inuyasha. Thus, Shio went outside to bug Inuyasha… so stop trying to sugar-coat it.

            Once he picked out which tree his hanyou friend was in, Shio jumped up and landed across from Inuyasha on the same branch.

            "Hey."

            "Hey."

            And they're off! Get ready, folks, because judging by the start of this conversation, this is going to be one WILD session of manly bonding (note the sarcasm)!

            "So…" Shio began. "Priestman told me about that bet he has going. My money's on next June."

            Inuyasha just grunted, because he didn't feel the need to verbally express the fact (or what he thought was a fact) that Shio was going to lose some money.

            Silence.

            …And, queue the boredom. Again. Shio decided to look for entertainment elsewhere.

            And in the meantime, Inuyasha entertained himself with his thoughts.

            Come to think of it, that bet wasn't so preposterous. They WERE taking an awfully long time to admit that they love each other… but there was a good reason for that.

            Inuyasha just didn't know if he loved her or not.

            Sure, he cared about her, he missed her when she was gone (though nobody would ever hear that from him), and he would probably go insane with loneliness if she were to never return from her time, but there was just that small matter of…

            Kikyo.

            *Yes, as much as I, the authoress, hate that wretched, horrid, and all around infuriating zombie (who is dead in this fic because Naraku killed her in episode 124, and I like it that way), I still have to examine the fact that Inuyasha promised to go to hell with her. Otherwise, there would just be one more thing to add to my long, growing list of plot holes.*

             Inuyasha promised her that he would go to hell with her… but did he really want to now? He had a reason to live, and even after he got the shikon jewel, he had plans. He didn't know exactly what they were at the moment, but he knew that they would involve Kagome. Even if it turned out that he didn't love her, he still had to have her in his life somehow. It didn't matter, just as long as she was there. Because… in all honesty… things were just better when she was there. And Inuyasha, being the greedy hanyou that he is, would do as much as he wasn't too lazy to do to make his life better. After all, he lived most of his life alone in the woods. 

            Inuyasha didn't know how long he sat up there thinking, but eventually, he smelled Kagome through the mouth of the well. He didn't even notice that his irritated foot-tapping ceased the moment her scent hit his nose.

            But still, she HAD somehow managed to sneak back to her time without him knowing. Though, he might as well go see if she has a gigantic bag for him to carry up…

            He landed at the bottom of the well and saw that Kagome was only carrying a miniscule pile of paper, which wasn't even worthy of a trip to her own time that lasted THAT long, in his opinion. The nerve of her!

            "Inuyasha… I'm sorry, but I needed some notes so that I could study!"

            He looked at her with an unreadable expression, and then said, "You know, I probably would have let you go if you just asked. We DID just get another shikon shard, so there wasn't exactly anything for you to be doing here."

            Kagome stared at him for a lengthy while, simultaneously ranting to herself in her head. 'I should have thought of that… I REALLY should have thought of that… I mean… I could have just walked to the well like a normal person, but instead I had to go and make myself and Kitty look like fools! That was embarrassing, too… I really thought it was worth it…'

            Inuyasha gave a short, amused snort. "I supposed that that 'piggy-back' ride, or whatever you call it that Kitty gave you is enough punishment for going home behind my back, though… so I'll let it go— this time," Inuyasha said to her as he picked her up, jumped out of the well, and set her gently on the ground.

            Well… there goes all of Inuyasha's monthly allotted time of being decent.

            Inuyasha felt his heart speed up when Kagome gave him a genuinely thankful and relieved smile. "Thanks, Inuyasha."

~*~

            "Just… a little… farther," Kitty said as she steered her microblast car onto the bouncy platform that would fling her up into the air so that she could get some health. But then… out of nowhere… Souta's calypso was dropped from the transporting blimp thing and shot her _once! Then she DIED, leaving her with only one more life!_

            "**NO!!!!!" she screamed in anguish. Souta then proceeded to gloat, but when he saw that Kitty was screaming because the water on the stove was boiling over and had jumped up to take care of it, he stopped and wandered into the kitchen after her.**

            "What are you cooking?"

            "It's a _surprise," she said in a mysterious voice, even as she pointedly waved a box of macaroni & cheese around in the air. Then she opened it and dumped the macaroni into the boiling water._

            Souta laughed at her antics. "Should I turn off the game, then?"

            Kitty looked at him, completely mortified. "Are you INSANE?! That's the farthest I've ever gotten in Twisted Metal 4! Just turn the TV off and we can get back to it after dinner."

            "But we're only on the second level…"

            "And I worked my butt off to even SURVIVE this long! And why'd you go and kill me, huh? What gives?"

            "I saw movement and didn't stop to think that it might not have been Moon Buggy. Sorry…"

            "That's all right," Kitty said, waving a hand in the air in a forgiving gesture. "So anyway, when do you think your mom will be back? She left at three and has been gone for two hours… hey, when she said 'shopping', did she mean grocery shopping, or leisure shopping?"

            "Probably both," he said with a shrug. "And by the looks of things, I'd say she ran into a friend while she was out… so we might be looking at a few more hours…"

            Kitty would have laughed at his exaggerated analysis, had she not almost believed him.

            So they ate dinner, played their game for a bit more (stopping when Kitty died instantly after beginning the next level), and it wasn't really as long as they thought before Mrs. H. got home. Then, after Kitty refused to take payment for having done nothing but improve upon her hand-eye coordination and pig out on cheesy noodles, they said their farewells and Kitty went on her way to the feudal era.

~*~

            When Kitty got there, she and everyone else decided that they were in a wistful mood (which was rare or uncommon, for some of them), so they went for a walk.

            But then Shippo whined that he was bored with just walking, so they started playing a game.

            It was a game that they played in one of the episodes… I don't know which number… but anyway, this is how it went: 

            There were two teams: Kagome, Inuyasha, Kitty, and Shippo, and Sango, Miroku, Shio, and Kirara.

            The teams would play rock, paper, scissor against each other, only they would use Hiraikotsu, Tessaiga, and Shakujou (Miroku's staff… I'm not quite sure if that's really one of the things, though… I'm not really sure about half of the stuff actually, so I'll just improvise… if you know the way things really went, then good for you, you get to hang it over my head know what's really going on).

            Again, I'm not positive about it, but I think that Tessaiga beat Shakujou, Shakujou beat Hiraikotsu, and Hiraikotsu beat Tessaiga.

            Depending on who won, their team would take a certain amount of steps forward. The number of steps depended on what the person won with. If they won with Tessaiga, they would take three steps, since Tessaiga has three syllables. Shakujou would be three steps as well… but Hiraikotsu would be four, even though it only has three syllables but it has that 'u' at the end… just go with it!

            The goal of the game was to just stay in the lead. Kagome, Inuyasha, Shippo and Kitty were in the lead for most of the game— in fact, they were in the lead for so long that they were about 100 meters ahead of the others. The distance plus the fact that they were on a hill and the path had made a turn (then there's the whole really thick foliage thing…) made it difficult to see or hear either group. They were shouting out what each of them played each round, when there was suddenly some confusion: the team with Sango, Miroku, Shio, and Kirara was silent during a play.

            The leading team called out to the others, but to no avail. They were about to go investigate when they saw Miroku approaching, huffing and puffing up the hill and gasping for breath, as if exerting all of his strength to carry him to them as fast as possible.

            "Watch out! He's coming…! *huff* Lady Kagome, Inuyasha, go! *puff*"

            "What are you going on about, monk?!" Inuyasha asked, shouting only because they still weren't really very close to each other.

            "It's Ko— *choking gasp* I can sense him… approaching us now! It's Ko—" Miroku cut himself off when a rumbling could be heard off in the distance.

            He stopped and stood where he was to catch his breath, now that the supposed danger was getting closer and closer, and he took on a solemn look, having apparently failed to warn his comrades of the approaching nuisance soon enough.

            Back with the leading team, Inuyasha was now looking livid. Their guest had shown himself, and was now rounding on Kagome, his intentions obvious. This time, like every other, there was no small-talk or preliminary taunts before the battle that was sure to come simply because he was there; it was just strait to the point with him.

            Having reached Kagome, Kouga took her hands in his own, the dust from his whirl-wind clearing in the background. "Oi, Kagome! How have you been?"

            Kagome laughed nervously. "Uh… good, Kouga-kun. I'm fine."

            Kouga noticed her nervousness and passed it off as Inuyasha's fault. "Has dog-turd been bothering you?"

            '_This is Kouga? He's so… arrogant… and presumptuous. Just as Mrs. H. told me ^_^! Well, in any case, it looks like I have yet another mission,' Kitty thought to herself as she mentally planned her attack strategy._

            "No, Kouga, Inuyasha isn't any trouble…" Kagome replied. She could hear Inuyasha growling at the wolf prince, just like every other time when Kouga came to tick him off.

            Kouga looked at Inuyasha like he stunk something awful. "Well maybe not for you…" he said under his breath. "Hey, dog-turd! Nice of you to protect my woman while I'm not here," he said just to get at the hanyou's nerves… well, maybe he also did it to re-instate that Kagome was HIS woman.

            Sango, Shio, Miroku and Kirara all joined the rest of the group.

            Inuyasha stomped up to Kouga and got into an offensive stance. "If you call her your woman ONE more time, I'm gonna rip your heart out through your throat so fast that you'll be able to see it beat in my hand before you die!"

            "Really, dog-turd, if that scared me, I wouldn't come to see MY WOMAN as often as I do," Kouga said, looking quite aloof and bored as he did so.

            'I swear, they're acting like children,' Kitty thought. Then she laughed— this was _nothing in comparison to what she was planning._

            Inuyasha drew Tessaiga— after all, they ended up fighting every time, so why not save a few minutes and just get right to the butt-whooping? "Alright, you stupid wimpy-wolf, you asked for it!"

            "Inuyasha," Kitty said in a sort of whiny voice, and Kouga noticed her for the first time. Every one else looked at her as well and saw that she wore an expression that looked dissatisfied, ashamed, and disgusted all at the same time.

            "What?"

            "..._Wimpy wolf? That's not insulting at all." 'Show time!'_

            Kouga smirked at how very right she was and opened his mouth to say something, but Kitty cut him off before he could continue.

            "If I were you, I'd call him something more along the lines of an unshaven beef-witted vermin."

            This time, it was Inuyasha's turn to grin haughtily while Kouga scowled at Kitty. "And who are you?"

            "Well I'm certainly not an unmuzzled hedge-pig, if you were thinking that I look anything remotely like what you just barely pass as," she said as she stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms.

            'Two can play at that game,' Kouga thought. "What kind of a cow do you think you are, talking to me that way?"

            Kitty looked utterly insulted, as if he just said the most disturbing your-mamma joke to her, who was mamma-less. "Are you calling me **FAT?!"**

            "No, I'm just commenting on the similarities between your mental capacities."

            "That's pretty low, coming from someone who just called Inuyasha 'dog-turd' three times because you can't be bothered to take a few seconds and come up with a CLEVER insult for him."

            "I just don't feel that he deserves the time and effort needed to come up with another one." Kouga regretted that the instant it left his mouth. He basically just insulted himself for her.

            "Oh, you're right; I should have known that already. Only someone as impenetrable as you would need time and effort to insult such an easy target."

            Inuyasha bristled.

            Kouga took a few seconds to retaliate. "Well at least my insults don't sound like I paid some Shakespearean reject to right some down for me to memorize because I have nothing productive to do with my time!"

            "You're right. You DON'T have anything productive to do with your time."

            "Wha— hey, I didn't say that!"

            "Yes you did."

            "No I didn't!"

            "You did."

            "I didn't!"

            "Did."

            "Didn't!!!"

            Everyone was watching them back and forth like it was a tennis match. Shippo crunched on some popcorn that he found in Kagome's backpack.

            "Everyone here heard you say it."

            "But that's taking it out of context!"

            "You still said it."

            Kouga huffed with frustration. "Well whatever. I don't feel like arguing with a flea-bitten feline about what her deranged mind thought it heard."

            "We weren't arguing," Kitty said, ignoring the rest of his comment.

            "Yes we were."

            "No we weren't."

            "We were."

            "Weren't."

            "Yes, we were arguing then, and we're arguing now!"

            "No we weren't, and no we aren't. An argument isn't just contradiction." (I don't own Monty Python…)

            Kouga looked back on all of the most intelligent arguments he'd ever had, and came to a conclusion. "Yes it is."

            "No, an argument is a course of connected statements intended to demonstrate a truth or falsehood. It isn't just saying 'yes it is' and 'no it isn't'."

            "Yes it is!"

            "No it isn't!"

            Too bad for Kouga that he didn't catch that one.

            Everyone else did though, and they all laughed. Inuyasha stole some popcorn from Shippo while he was distracted.

            Kitty waited for Kouga to say something.

            …

            "It's your turn, you know."

            "Oh, we're taking turns?"

            "Well I thought we already established that. Didn't you notice the pattern going? You spoke after I spoke every time."

            "You… you… who ARE you, anyway?!"

            "I already told you."

            "No you didn't!"

            "Yes I did."

            "No you didn't!"

            "Oh not this again…"

            "Well we only got into that because you're being so difficult!"

            "You know what? Why are you here?"

            Kouga was silent. Just then, Hakkaku and Ginta FINALLY caught up with Kouga. They looked like they would cry for joy over finally setting eye upon their pack leader after god knows how long of being too far behind.

            "I originally came here to see Kagome, but—" Kouga stopped when he noticed that Kitty wasn't listening to him at all. Instead, she was gazing wistfully at the sky as if he didn't even exist. "GOD! You're just so irritating! You know what? You're worse than dog-turd!" Kouga shouted as he turned around and finally left. Hakkaku and Ginta looked like they would cry again, but this time because they weren't looking forward to running some more at all.

            "That's number four!" Kitty yelled at his retreating figure. Kouga's silhouette against the setting sun could be seen performing a massive face-fault before getting up and running some more.

            Kitty was facing the way Kouga had gone, and her back was facing everyone. They all watched her and noticed that her shoulders started to shake. She bent her head forward and they heard strangled sounds coming from her like she was really ticked off or something.

            But then she turned around and saw them all watching, and she lost it.

            Rolling around on the ground and clutching her sides in hysterical laughter, she somehow managed to get out the words, "I haven't had… such a good argument… in three years!" And she wasn't exaggerating.

            Kagome was thinking how Kouga might not come back for a while, and if that was what Kitty meant to do. Inuyasha was thinking that Kouga wouldn't come back for a while, and wondering if he should share some ramen with everyone to celebrate. Shippo was wondering if Kagome had more popcorn. Kirara was wondering what just happened. Sango was wondering if Kitty could give her some tips on how to drive off lecherous and very persistent monks. Miroku was wondering if Sango would notice if he groped her while her mind was occupied. Shio's thoughts were censored.

~*~

Good times.


	7. Chapter 7

Bless you lovely people! It's 6:19 in the morning and I originally only got on this early because I wanted to taunt my sister… see, she is temporarily banned from it… so I just wanted to annoy her at first, but then I checked my mail and saw all my wonderful reviews and I was like, "Hey! I'm WICKED HAPPY now! They just made my day!" Well actually I didn't really say that because there are people still asleep in my house… but I thought it! And now my day is going to be extra-super-fantabulous because I have people who appreciate me even though they don't even know me, and plus it's RAINING! I love rain.

Hey… whoa… I thought I made up 'fantabulous', but it turns out that it's a real word! So is indubitably… my family really needs to stop saying these strange words as if they aren't real! My education is at stake!

Hehehehe…. I'm all hyper now from my super happiness. Can you tell? Weee! Well I think I'll just go on to the actual chapter now then…

~*~

            After that little bout with Kouga the other day, the whole lot of them went back to Kaede's and spent the rest of the night there. Them the next morning, it was just the same as always…

            Shippo was playing contentedly with a slinky, which just so happened to be red, and he was having a grand ol' time with it. Inuyasha was bored, and saw Shippo playing with the slinky. It looked mildly interesting.

            So he went over and plucked it right out of the brat's hands. When Shippo whined for him to give it back, he irritably replied that he would only be a minute with it, and to just wait and 'don't mess yourself over it'. So Shippo turned himself into that pink balloon and started gnawing on Inuyasha's head. Inuyasha got angry, and a scuffle ensued.

            What resulted was Kagome sitting against the trunk of a tree with Inuyasha in a branch above her and Shippo held protectively in her lap as she tried to untangle the slinky.

            Looking at the mess, she sighed. Then she looked up to Inuyasha and said, "See, _this is why we can't buy you nice things." Inuyasha gave her one of those looks that said 'don't you dare scold me just because I try to make sure that I get into a fracas with that kid every day. Come on, I need SOME consistency in my life!'_

            "Can you fix it, Kagome?" Shippo asked innocently from Kagome's lap.

            In all honesty, it looked hopeless. Kagome just wished that something else would come along and distract the kitsune from his broken toy, preferably sometime soon.

            She looked around as if to find the words to answer him in the air. That's when she saw Kitty sitting against the outside wall of the hut with the electric keyboard in her lap and a hand hovering above it, ready to play on command. She was looking at Kagome, waiting.

            Kagome smiled to her friend, who took that as her queue and started playing the bounciest, most child-appealing tune she could think of. Shippo heard it of course, and instantly perked up in favor of investigating the new toy.

            As soon as Shippo was adequately amused and wouldn't let his attention be drawn away from the keyboard, Inuyasha jumped down from his branch and sat cross-legged next to Kagome.

            "Let me see that," he said, referring to the slinky.

            Kagome handed the tangled mass of plastic over to him and tried to watch to see what he wanted it for, but he spun himself around so that his back was facing her and she couldn't see.

            She tried fruitlessly to peek over his shoulder, but he just kept moving. So she gave up and a few moments later, he turned around again a presented her with a fixed slinky.

            Kagome smiled as he handed it back to her and said, "Thanks, Inuyasha. I probably would have just thrown it out."

            He shrugged as if he did things like that every day. "It was nothing."

            Kagome shifted so that she was sitting on her feet. "Nothing, hmm? Well in any case, I really appreciate it," she said, leaning up to pat him jokingly on the head like she would do to a real dog.

            He scoffed at her. "Well if all I get is the pet treatment for that then I don't know why I even bothered."

             She rested her arms on her thighs and leaned forward a bit in thought. "Well then how else can I thank you?"

            "Well," he said as he began to ponder that. He shifted a bit so that he too was leaning forward in thought.

            It took them both a few seconds to realize how close their faces were… and when they did, neither of the two retreated in embarrassment as one would expect. Both of their minds were far too scattered from feeling the other's hot breath tickling their faces to draw back.

            Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Kitty is squatting low behind a bush with a camera aimed at the couple. She had left Shippo with the keyboard (and the headphones, of course) so that she could find something more interesting— and this little discovery just made her day. She was so happy, in fact, that she was quite oblivious to the fact that her finger was adding more and more pressure to the button with every passing second of anticipation before they finally kissed each other. So she had no idea what was coming when the button finally gave way and a flash emitted from the camera.

            Inuyasha and Kagome were both stunned back onto the earth so abruptly that they couldn't figure out whether they wanted to regain their vision first or just charge blindly at whatever had interrupted them. They took a few moments to decide.

            Assuming that she would probably get beaten to a pulp, or at least yelled at for eaves-dropping on a rare tender moment between those two love-birds, Kitty sprinted away from the scene and back to the hut, taking a long-cut through some thick trees nearby to try and throw Inuyasha off if he decided to sniff out the intruder. She managed to escape before Kagome and Inuyasha could collect themselves.

~*~

            After that little fiasco, Kitty thought that it would be best to look busy, just in case an investigation for suspects was formed. That, and she was bored.

            It was almost lunch-time, so naturally, Kaede was cooking, Sango was in the hut preparing things for the meal, and Miroku was inside just to be with Sango. Shippo was busying himself with the electric keyboard, and… she hadn't seen Shio for a while…

            She sighed and sat herself on a tree stump that she just happened to find. Why was it that she got so bored all the time? It's not HER fault that she has a short attention span for things that are generally considered to be boring.

            But, whenever Kitty gets desperate, she always has a last resort that never fails her: she thinks.

            Not always meditating thinking, but sometimes she just liked to think. She could think about anything, really… just something to keep her mind occupied.

            But even THAT was difficult! She couldn't think of anything to think of! But then she decided that if she looked around herself then she would be reminded of something…. THEN she could think about stuff. Man, the things she does just to keep entertained!

            She glanced at her surroundings: trees, more trees, a few huts in the distance, villagers, some cows, rice patties, and some more trees. That actually gave her a good idea for a poem, believe it or not, but she put off writing it for a time when she had some paper and something to write with.

            Okay, now that that was over with, she became restless again. She felt like spinning around, so she got onto her knees without getting off of the stump and spun herself around on it by using her hands to make herself rotate.

            Then she noticed something moving on the ground and stopped. Closer observation revealed that it was a worm and a slug. They were both on the edge of the dirt path, and they were traveling in the same direction, side-by-side.

            They looked like they were racing…

            Hey, she was bored! So she watched them for a bit longer.

            Behind her, Shio came back from wherever he was (probably getting 'attention' from a village girl) and noted that Kitty was in a position on the stump with her knees still on it, her elbows resting on the edge, and her head in her upturned hands. In such a position, her butt was sticking up in the air and her spine was bent back in a way that Shio didn't mind admiring for a few minutes, and he didn't even bother to question why she chose a stump to do whatever she was doing on.

            As Kitty watched the two slimy critters race, she began to root for the worm in her mind. But then it encountered a rock, which it took a while to try to climb over but then resolve to go around. She groaned in disappointment that it was now behind the slug as she shifted in anticipation.

            After hearing the groan and seeing Kitty's position and actions, he could only conclude that she was in need of… assistance… from a member of the male population. And we all know that Shio is just perfect for the job ^_~. So he sauntered up to Kitty, squatted down to her level, and said, "Are you looking for something, or do you perhaps need me to help you lose it?"

            "Ssh," she said, waving a hand to shush him after glancing at him briefly.

            Only when she looked back to the race did Shio see what had caused her to be where she was and on the log as she was. He sulked at the sight— he was all disappointed now.

            But he shrugged it off and asked, "Why are you watching that worm and slug?"

            "I want to see who will win the race. I marked the finish line with that twig," she said while pointing to the twig about five feet off, and without taking her eyes off of the race. The worm was gaining!

            "Huh," Shio said.

            "Yup."

            Shio observed the race for a moment and then said, "I think the slug will win."

            "I'm rooting for the worm. He's only behind because of that rock over there, and he's gaining."

            "Yeah, but the slug doesn't have any rocks in its path, and the worm has a lot more in the way after that one. The slug will probably win."

            "Hmm… I disagree," Kitty replied thoughtfully after considering his point.

            "What are you looking at?" A new voice asked.

            They both looked up to see Miroku approaching them, accompanied with a throbbing, bright red hand print on his face.

            "We're watching a race," Kitty said. "And the worm is going to win," she said to Shio.

            "I still say that it'll be the slug," he said as he got into a more comfortable sitting position, since he might be there for while.

            Miroku watched the race as they exchanged opinions, and then voiced his own. "I think that I must go with Lady Kitty on this one. Although the worm has many obstacles in its path, it is also faster than the slug."

            "Hah," Kitty said.

            Shio crossed his arms and pretended to be so completely enthralled with the race that he seemed oblivious to their comments.

            Miroku walked around the two of them and sat on his feet on Kitty's other side.

            A few moments of silence passed.

            "How long have you been watching them go at it?" Miroku asked, noting that there was a twig that looked like a finish like about four and 1/2 feet away from all of the action.

            "Um… maybe three minutes? I'm not sure," Kitty replied.

            Before Miroku could voice another question, there was a violent breeze that had the leaves on all of the trees shaking loudly, and a whirlwind could be seen nearing them off in the distance. As it drew closer, it began to slow down, almost hesitating. It got over that, however, and soon enough Kouga was standing near the three of them and scoffing down at Kitty, who just continued to watch the race and refused to even acknowledge Kouga's presence.

            Miroku noticed the tense silence between the two and did something to break it. "Greetings, Kouga. Have you come to see Lady Kagome?"

            Kouga looked utterly confused for a few seconds, before again turning his gaze onto Kitty and glaring at her once more. "You stupid wench! You're so irritating that the mere sight of you made me forget why I'm even HERE!"

            Kitty snickered, but otherwise ignored in favor of monitoring the progress of the worm.

            Kouga, who absolutely refused to be satisfied unless he could provoke Kitty and actually get a reaction, settled himself down right in the middle of the path so that he could watch the race as well without being on the same side as Kitty.

            "So what pitiful form of entertainment have you stooped down to now?" he asked, mostly directing the question to Kitty.

            Kitty didn't answer though, so Shio did instead. "They're racing. The slug looks like he's gonna win, too."

            "The WORM!" Kitty argued, turning to him and poking him to emphasize her point before watching the race again.

            "I think it'll be the slug, too," Kouga said just because he had to oppose to Kitty in every way possible… even though he didn't really give a crap which of the two won.

            Miroku, always in at least one of his only two states of mind (lechery and swindling), got an idea. "Shall we make a wager? I propose that the losing side cooks dinner tonight for the winners."

            "Hmm… I like that idea," Kitty said, since that deal would let her win either way. If she won, she got a free dinner. If she lost, then she would get to cook, which she likes to do anyway.

            Shio also agreed, but Kouga was completely hell-bent on being against Kitty in every way possible. "No way in hell! I ain't cooking food for that flea bag if I lose!" he said loudly, shoving a finger through the air and pointing it to Kitty.

            "Aaw, is little Kouga so insecure of his opinion that he's afraid to lose? Or do you just suck at cooking?" Kitty asked.

            Kouga glared at her. "Screw you! That slug will win, and when it does, I hope you burn all of your stupid pink-ended hair off when you cause a fire in the kitchen!"

            "You agree to the wager then?"

            "Of course!"

            Ah, the wonders of reverse-psychology.

            Hakkaku and Ginta arrived at the scene, huffing and puffing in exhaustion. "What… *pant* wager…?" they asked as they collapsed on either side of Kouga to catch their breaths. It always seemed that they missed everything important when they traveled with Kouga… or rather, when they traveled behind Kouga.

            The bet was explained to them, and after Kouga proclaimed that he was rooting for the slug in an excessively loud voice, which was supposed to hint for Hakkaku and Ginta to do the same, they picked up on the signal and also voted for the slug.

~*~

            "Why hasn't Miroku come back yet? Dinner is ready— I would have expected him to smell it," Sango said.

            "Perhaps he got distracted," Kaede replied.

            "Keh, I wouldn't put it past him. Any time he sees something either shiny or round, he gets a one-track mind," Inuyasha pointed out. He and Kagome had gone into the hut to wait for lunch after they gave up on their half-hearted search for the perpetrator of the crime they were involved with. Shippo was also waiting inside, still playing with the electric keyboard (with the headphones on).

            "I guess I'll go get him and the others for lunch then…," Sango said as she stood up to leave, Kirara on her shoulder.

~*~

            The crowd was getting restless. The slug and worm had reached the half-way point and were neck-and-neck. They were all either cheering on whichever one they were supporting rather loudly, or they were arguing with somebody that the slug WAS cheating, or that the worm MUST have sabotaged the track.

            Sango approached them all and cleared her throat loudly and with an edge of confusion and anger to the gesture. They all shut up to hear what she was interrupting them for.

            "What's going on? You're all making lunch get cold."

            "We're watching a race though! The fate of our dinner is at stake," they said along with other various statements that vaguely resembled that.

            "Oh really now? Who are the contestants?" Sango asked, slightly curious.

            They explained the whole spiel to her, and sure enough, they had lassoed her into the excitement. After deciding to root for the worm, she took a seat next to Miroku, but not close enough to be within groping range.

~*~

            Ten minutes had passed, and Inuyasha was getting quite impatient. He wanted to eat, and he wanted to eat NOW, dammit!

            Too bad Kagome wouldn't let him, though. She threatened to say the magic 'O' word unless he went outside to investigate with her— that way she could make sure that he didn't be rude and dig in before they all got there.

            Then, while they were leaving, Shippo decided to come along so that he could get some fresh air and a break from the keyboard.

~*~

            "GO! MOVE YOUR ASS, YOU STUPID SLUG!" Kouga hollered as a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. The worm was in the lead again, and he just couldn't STAND that smug look on Kitty's face.

            "Yay! Go worm!" Kitty and Sango cheered.

            Miroku was also anxious, but, not being one to appear as anything but calm, he did his best to not burst out with a loud string of profanity directed toward the worm, which was slowly letting the slug catch up. They only had a few more inches to go… six, at the most.

            Shio was leaning forward, as if glaring at the slug from a closer distance would make it go faster.

            So close to the finish line… and the worm was still in the lead. Then Kagome, Inuyasha, and Shippo arrived at the scene.

            "What's going on? Sango, you were supposed to get everyone for lunch… Kouga, when did you get here?" Kagome asked.

            Sango explained the bet to the three of them who had just arrived. And yes, you guessed it: they decided to bet, too. Kagome rooted for the worm, Shippo rooted for the slug, and Inuyasha just didn't give a crap, so he rooted for whatever Kagome rooted for.

            The two contestants were an inch from the finish line, and the worm was still in the lead.

            A minute of screaming and shouting later, the worm had won.

            "Yay! I get to cook dinner," Shippo cheered. The winning team was hesitant about eating the dinner he made, but hey, they won the dinner, so they'd eat it! Besides, the worst he could do would be to put gummy worms in some ice-cream and call it the entrée, and he didn't have either of the two, so it was all good.

            All good except for Kouga. Shio didn't really care if he had to cook or not, since he was on his own most of the time and he always got his own food. Hakkaku and Ginta attempted to look angry about it because Kouga looked like he would kill them if they didn't… but it really didn't affect them much at all, since they would have made dinner that night anyway if they hadn't stopped to see Kagome… or stopped for whatever reason they did…

            But still, Kouga was just ticked off at his loss.

            "Oi, wimpy wolf, would you quit whining? You can't even win your own battles, so why is it such a disappointment that you can't bet on a winning side?" Inuyasha said.

            "Oh you are SO gonna pay for that comment, dog-turd!"

            "That's five."

            They both turned to look at Kitty.

            "Huh?" Kouga asked.

            "That's the fifth time you've called Inuyasha a dog-turd… at least out of all the times I've heard it. I don't doubt that you've said it many times before, though…"

            Inuyasha grinned… the only thing that even came close to arguing with Kouga was watching somebody else do it.

            "You know, at this point in our association, it's not much of an insult. It's just what I call him," Kouga said flatly.

            "Pfft. Nice excuse."

            Kouga started getting really annoyed again. "There IS a difference between an excuse and a GOOD _REASON_, you know!"

            "You just keep telling yourself that," she said with a sarcastic smile and a nod.

            Kouga started fuming and was distracted by Inuyasha laughing. Kouga glared at him for a while, then when he looked back at Kitty she wasn't even there anymore. She was off placing her bet for when Kagome and Inuyasha will get together. Miroku was probably reminded of it because of the race.

            Kouga stomped up over to her.

            "I think Sango has the right idea," Kitty said to Miroku, handing him some money. It was American money, but he didn't notice. "I'm going with this December as well—"

            Kitty was cut off when Kouga slapped her upside the head.

            She turned to face him fully and stared at him expectantly without saying a word.

            He stared back at her.

            …

            He slapped her on the head, and he didn't even have a good reason! That just ticked her off. She pushed him lightly on the shoulder.

            He pushed her back, but just a tiny bit harder.

            They continued to exchange shoves, which continued growing harder and harder, until they were wrestling each other on the ground. They were pulling tails, biting, fighting for the upper-hand— but still, it was obvious that they were both holding back because otherwise, Kouga could have easily won since Kitty has little experience with REAL fighting. It was more of a fight that was just supposed to let them take their frustration out on each other for as long as they wanted while simultaneously keeping the other from being able to say any more stupid things. Just your typical win-win situation, really.

            Well… it would have been if they actually managed to keep each other from making smart comments.

            "Mangy street-cat!" Kouga shouted while straining to keep Kitty's hand away from his neck.

            "Earth-vexing pile of parrot droppings!" Kitty exclaimed as Kouga managed to flip them so that he was on top. He then reached for her ears, but she caught his wrists and the battle for power began another cycle.

            "Infectious hell-hated harpy!"

            Kitty caught Kouga's tail between her toes behind him and tugged just hard enough to make him give up on her ears. "Infectious? That's a pretty big word for a dankish flap-mouthed puttock!"

            "Would a mewling gudgeon like you even know what a puttock is?" Kouga asked as he tried to resist being caught in a head-lock.

            Kitty gave up on the head-lock attempt and instead pinned him on his back and tried to get a hold on his arm so that she could twist it back. "Quit flailing your arms like a butchered cephalopod and take a beating like a man!" Kitty said, purposely not answering the question because she really had no idea what a puttock was. She only vaguely remembered seeing that it was a European kite… or a buzzard… or marsh harrier, or something…***

             They kept going at it for quite some time. Everyone else got bored with watching them (surprisingly) and sick of waiting for them for lunch, so they went inside. About half-way through the meal though, they brought it outside so that they could see how long Kitty and Kouga could go at it like that.

            Nearly thirty minutes later, they finally gave up on it. Nobody questioned why they went so easy on each other, because they figured that it was most likely so that they would get reactions to the insults they gave instead of just wasting their breath on an opponent with a lip too swollen to speak. At least, that's what they expected from Kouga. Kitty would probably come up with something like not wanting to even be a part of that in the first place, so she tried to keep it tame.

            Tame. Pfft.

            So after they gave up, they ate a cold lunch and avoided each other until dinner, when they would try to interact as little as possible.

            When dinner-time came, Kitty saw Shio, Kouga, Hakkaku, Ginta, and Shippo getting ready to make the meal (after some convincing that no, cooking does not make Kouga seem feminine and he runs no risk of having something in common with Kitty) and she insisted that they cooked on the gas grill that was stored in the truck back in the present. She snuck off with Kagome to get it, and then brought it back so that they could have a cook-out, thus cooking a meal for 11 people (Kaede's there) _properly_. Kitty also brought a sack of everything that she would need and had forgotten to take with her for her stay in the feudal era (A/N: In the last chapter Kitty decided to stay in the feudal era until Sunday, when she would go back to the present to see if she got the job at WacDnald's. It's now Wednesday. Just a re-cap.). She made sure to pack some candy, and also thought to bring some food in a cooler that wouldn't be found in the feudal era.

            One of the main things she brought was… corn. She also brought some garlic and other stuff to cook it up all nice and good, just because she was missing American veggies.

            "What the hell is this monstrosity?" Kouga asked as he held an ear of corn between two fingers and looked at it in disgust.

            "It's called CORN and it's GOOD! Now go learn how to fire up the grill from Kagome and I'll get all of the ingredients, since you're obviously too incompetent to manage that on your own," Kitty said.

            Kouga glared at her, but obliged.

            Mostly everyone was watching Kagome to learn what the grill was, but Shio and Shippo were curious about the corn.

            "Don't people usually boil corn?" Shio asked, because he has that weird knowledge about the future. No, really. He does.

            "Usually, yes, but grilling it while it's still in the husk after soaking it with a sauce of melted butter and crushed garlic is SO delicious and way better," Kitty answered.

            "Uh… you soak the husk in the sauce? What, do you eat that part?" Shippo asked from his perch on Shio's shoulder.

            "No, no. You peel it part-way, put the sauce on the actual corn, then cover it back up and grill the whole thing. You don't eat the husk, and it's really good, trust me."***

            "I want to grill some carn!" Shippo said, unknowingly miss-pronouncing corn.

            The three of them started walking out towards the grill, where Kouga, Hakkaku, and Ginta were already waiting to start. "I don't thing you should be using the grill, but you can help with the sauce ^_^" Kitty offered. He was only a kid, after all.        "AND you can make dessert!"

            "YAY!"

            "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Shio asked with a sideways glance to her.

            "Nobody will be hungry enough to eat whatever he makes, anyway," she reasoned.

            They reached where everyone was waiting (with the exception of Inuyasha, who was up in a tree nearby) and Kitty got right down to business.

            She set down two grocery bags (each with eleven ears of corn, just in case everyone happened to want seconds) and the cooler, then turned to face the five male characters who were chefs for the night.

            "Okay men," she said, picking up an ear of corn. "This is a vegetable called corn from my country. I'd leave the recipe to you so you could go at it yourselves, but I'm sure you wouldn't be able to read English and writing it out in kanji would just waste time. So, I'm going to be here and oversee the procedure while I tell you how to cook it."

            "Why do we have to take orders from _you_?" I'll give you three guesses as to who asked that, and the first two don't count. That's right: Kouga.

            "Because I'm the only one who can translate the recipe."

            "So?"

            "So, you want to wind up using the butter to grease the grill, stick the garlic under the feet to balance it, and set the corn on fire because you haven't the slightest idea about what you're doing?"

            "Well the fox-dog seems to know something about it."

            "But then you would go and use that as an excuse to get out of doing any work, since he would be the only one who knew what he was doing. Now let it go and cooperate just this once."

            Kouga crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air in a show of stubbornness.

            Kitty sighed in mock disappointment. "I guess Kagome will be going hungry tonight, then…"

            Kouga agreed to cook after that.

~*~

            Inuyasha jumped down from his tree branch when he smelled the food.

            "Oi, wimpy wolf, what's that smell?"

            "…Carn."

            Inuyasha examined what was on the grill. "What, no meat???"

            "I for one think that by the smell of it, the carn will be just fine," Miroku said. Sango nodded in agreement from beside him.

            Kagome overheard them from where she was standing nearby the fire. "It's corn, you guys."

            None of them made any indication that they cared.

~*~

            Kouga was off to the side for a while, arguing with Kitty because he wanted MEAT with the meal, but Kitty didn't want to have the smell of a corpse being gutted around the place where they were going to _eat_.

            Kagome, Miroku, and Sango were engaged in a conversation with Inuyasha about where the last few shards might be— besides the ones in Kouga's legs and the one that Kohaku has, that is.

            And finally, Kaede was overseeing Shio while he made MORE butter sauce. Then after he finished he got bored… so he took an extra stick of butter and sculpted a beautiful woman, making use of artistic nudity.

            So it was safe to say that while Hakkaku and Ginta were watching the corn and Shippo was lounging on Ginta's shoulder, everybody else was distracted.

            For that reason, Shippo took the opportunity to experiment with the grill. He took some acorns out of his pocket and tossed one into the flames below the many ears of corn. There, it started to burn in its fiery death.

            He decided that he liked the reaction, so he chucked another one.

            However, instead of just innocently landing into the bottom of the grill, it knocked the first acorn through a hole that was there for ventilation, and it landed on the ground where it started to catch grass on fire. At that point, Shippo fled to Kagome before he could be blamed for the trouble.

            Hakkaku was the first to notice. "Um… Ginta?"

            "Hmm?"

            Hakkaku pointed to the flames.

            "Well… that can't be good."

            "Of course it can't be good!" Hakkaku whispered so as not to attract attention. "It could burn the whole village down!"

            "Well then put it out!"

            "With what?!"

            "I don't know! Put it out!"

            "I don't have anything to put it out with! You do it!"

            "Um… okay, I'll go get something to put it out with and be right back!"

            "Hurry!"

            A few moments later, Ginta came back with a cup in his hands and dumped the contents onto the fire. The liquid ignited and spread on even more grass.

            "Oh that is great, why don't you just burn the whole village down, while you're at it?!"

            "Well how was I supposed to know that sake is flammable?! It's a _fluid, like WATER. I just got the crazy idea that maybe it would put out the fire!"_

            Hakkaku sighed heavily. "Did you think that maybe the ICE in that cooler thing that… the cat girl has would put it out?!"

            "…"

            He rolled his eyes and went to get the cooler. They spent a couple of minutes discreetly tossing ice onto the spreading flames, and then they finally subsided. Ginta went to put the cooler back where it came from, and then they went back to watching the grill as if nothing had happened.

            Kitty came over with Kouga, and they both sneezed. "Why does it smell like burnt sake over here?"

~*~

            "Hey, this is pretty good," Kagome said.

            Kouga looked proud. "It does me good to have my woman compliment my cooking."

            Inuyasha bit into his corn at just the right angle to make juice squirt into Kouga's eyes.

            "Oh please," Kitty said dryly. "You didn't do anything but tell Hakkaku and Ginta when to flip the cobs and Shio when to make more sauce."

            Kouga looked at her. "Who _are_ you?"

            Kitty ignored the question. "So really, they and Shio deserve the praise." She looked at the three of them, who were all sitting next to each other. "Great job! I think I might have to win more bets to you more often."

            They all smiled to her in thanks through mouthfuls of corn, and Ginta blushed. Probably from being reminded of that fiasco with the acorns.

            "Hey! Don't forget about who made dessert!" Shippo said.

            "Yes, Shippo, good job with that," Kagome said as she patted him on the head. He beamed with pride. "What did you make, anyway?"

            "You have to wait and see! ^____^"

            Kitty smiled at how incredibly cute Shippo was, and didn't even notice that she had just polished off her second thing of corn. She sighed and cave the cob to Kirara to chew on (well… my dog likes to chew on them. I'm not quite sure about cats though).

            "Somebody can have my second one if they want," Ginta said, looking like he was way too bloated to even take one more bite of his first one.

            Kitty beamed and reached for it, and at the other end of it was Kouga. They sent each other murderous glares and started a match of tug-of-war.

            Neither of them were making any progress, so Inuyasha grabbed a hold of it as well, because he wanted it, too. Besides, if he was fighting for it too, then there would be even LESS of a chance that Kouga got it.

            Kitty tried to solve it. "Okay, okay, whoever wants this corn, raise your hand.

            They both gave her flat looks.

            "Oh, good job not falling for that one ^__^" Kitty said. "Give yourselves a round of applause!"

            They actually looked like they would do it, but then they sent Kitty more flat looks and sweat-dropped. Did she think they were stupid?

            …

            …

            …We won't answer that.

            Kitty sighed when the tugging match started again and looked over to Ginta. "Who should have it, Ginta?"

            Inuyasha and Kouga both glared at him with 'I'll KILL you if you don't let me have it' written all over their faces, and Kitty just smiled and batted her eyelashes.

            Ginta looked panicked and torn between keeping his mouth shut to let them solve it, and pleasing his pack leader. "Um…"

            Kouga started to growl at him.

            "Kouga."

            Surprisingly, Inuyasha let go. Perhaps even he was smart enough not to get too worked up over some corn.

            Kouga grinned with triumph.

            But Kitty would have NONE OF IT! She promptly smacked him on the forehead with the heel of her hand and in he let go out of surprise. She bit into the corn and just barely kept herself from bubbling over with giggles at how disgusted Kouga looked now that she had taken a bite of it. She won the corn.

            So after everyone finished with their share of the meal, Shippo brought out dessert: pistachio ice-cream with sour gummy worms, Butterfinger bb's, and skittles all mixed in. Yum.

            "Um…" Sango said as she pushed the ice-cream around in her bowl. "Um… just… eew." Mostly everyone else scrunched up their faces in agreement.

            Fortunately, Shippo didn't hear her say that because he was too busy getting praise from Kitty. She apparently thought it was delicious. But then, she once ate marshmallows with mustard as a snack, so she just has weird taste.***

~*~

            After Kouga, Hakkaku, and Ginta had left, it was pretty late, so they decided to call it a day.

            Everyone was asleep in Kaede's hut with the exception of Inuyasha, who slept in his tree, and Kitty who liked to sleep on the roof.

            Tonight, though, sleep didn't come to her until she thought about the bet she made with Miroku.

            'December… I'll have to get started, then ^_____^.'

~*~

So how was it? It took a while, but it WAS extra-super long. I had so much fun writing this. It was insane.

***I got 'puttock' from this site that has a bunch of Shakespearean insults (where I get ALL of Kitty's insults… or most of them) and then I looked up 'puttock' and it didn't have the word in my dictionary or the one at dictionary.com. So I went to a SHAKESPEAREAN dictionary, and it had 3 definitions for the word. A European kite, a buzzard, and a marsh harrier were all of them. Get it?

***I don't think corn is native to Japan… Because, see, corn was new to the Europeans, who knew about Japan, so yeah… and that recipe for grilling corn was something I saw on a cooking show. It looked wicked good, and I have yet to try it…

***I know that the marshmallow and mustard thing might seem familiar to some people because I mentioned somebody eating that in 'Till the End of Time… if you must know why I recycled it, it's because I think it's funny. And… I got that idea from actually eating that. It wasn't half bad, actually… but that might be because at the time, it was 3 in the morning and I was completely slap-happy.


End file.
